Absolutely One Thing (Charlie and Lola)

PreS-Gr 1--Charlie and Lola are going to the store with their mother to choose a treat: "One thing EACH, which means TWO actual things." Of course, Lola manages to complicate and delay the process, counting ladybugs, feeding ducks, and bartering with Mom while Charlie tries to herd his sister to the store. As usual, Child encapsulates zany child logic in the character of Lola while Charlie plays the straight man. The line drawings and textured mixed-media illustrations are as sunny and energetic as those in Child's other books. The layout is busy, with a dizzying variety of fonts. Plenty of math is squeezed into the text, but the joy of numbers is conveyed much more effectively than any specific calculation technique. VERDICT A must-buy for preschool and early elementary math collections, as well as for Charlie and Lola fans.--Rachel Anne Mencke, St. Matthew's Parish School, Pacific Palisades, CA

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

These are mostly numbers as fun—"Or a squillion?"—numbers to roll around in your mouth, then chew and swallow to feed your imagination.
—Kirkus Reviews

Child makes mathematical concepts fun in this book featuring two counting siblings.
—Booklist

The line drawings and textured mixed-media illustrations are as sunny and energetic as those in Child's other books. The layout is busy, with a dizzying variety of fonts. Plenty of math is squeezed into the text, but the joy of numbers is conveyed much more effectively than any specific calculation technique. A must-buy for preschool and early elementary math collections, as well as for Charlie and Lola fans.
—School Library Journal

Math is not a scary, abstracted monolith, it's folded into everyday life in countless ways. Leave it to British author-illustrator Lauren Child's (I Will Never Not Ever Eat a Tomato) ever-charming Charlie and his little sister Lola to make this point with panache.
—Shelf Awareness for Readers

Charlie's droll narration alternates between exasperation and indulgence, and kids with younger siblings will find it particularly entertaining. The animated text provides plenty of opportunities to practice counting and calculating simple operations, while corresponding numeric labels and number sentences make explicit the tallying and calculations...Use this as a springboard into a math lesson or simply share and enjoy with Charlie and Lola fans.
—Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books