Hat Tricks Count

Children's Literature - Meagan Albright

Fans of hockey, young and old, will enjoy this nicely written and illustrated book about the sport. The two-tiered writing, one level written in poetry form and geared towards a younger audience, the other full of interesting information about hockey, is an effective method of stretching the usefulness of the book. Children ages four through six will appreciate the soft and beautiful illustrations, while the older crowd will benefit from the longer and more complex expository text. One quibble with this book is the counting sequence going from one to twelve before jumping to fifteen, then twenty, twenty-five, thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, seventy, eighty, ninety, and one hundred. It would be preferable for the book to count in either increments of ones or tens, rather than in ones, then fives, then tens. This would make it easier for children to anticipate and understand the concepts in the book. Another slight flaw is the illustrations for a few of the numbers. For example, the picture for number eleven features eleven Stanley Cups, but the way they are lined up makes it difficult to count the trophies. Also some numbers, such as number twenty, feature a repeating picture. In the picture, five girls are grouped together, and the picture is repeated four times to total twenty. It doesn't seem that it would be much more difficult to simply draw twenty different girls. These small points detract only slightly from the book, which serves as an excellent counting and learning book for sports fans.