One Gray Mouse

Christian Library Journal

Though there are many counting books, this is a darling little book, with superb illustrations. One can picture a little one sitting on a beloved lap eagerly looking at the pictures. In each picture is a little gray mouse, and it would be great fun too see if the preschooler can find where the mouse is hiding.
(This is) a charming book for a little person. This would be a great gift for a birthday or other occasions. The numbers go from one to ten. Katherine Burton weaves a familiar counting game and illustrations by Kim Fernandes are inspired.

Children's Literature - Meredith Kiger

Kids will love this counting book that adds color identification and rhyming words for additional interest and learning. Charming three-dimensional illustrations made of sculptured clay will capture the preschooler's imagination.

School Library Journal

PreS-Gr 1--Burton's simple rhyming text incorporates counting to 10 and identifying colors and animals by using repetitive words and patterned language; e.g., "Five pink pigs in yellow pig wigs." Fernandes's artwork, created in richly colored modeling clay, shows cleverly crafted scenes that feature each of the 10 animals. Unfortunately, the characters are a little too cute, giving the book a mass-market look. On the plus side, toddlers and preschoolers will be immediately attracted to this simple, clever multi-concept book, and very young readers can easily combine the words with the picture clues to "read" the text themselves. Also, visually observant children will notice the gray mouse collecting an item on each page to take back to its "black mouse house" at the end of the story.--Gale W. Sherman, Pocatello Public Library, ID

Kirkus Reviews

Readers will be entranced from the minute they see one gray mouse greeting the day from its black teapot's doorstep on the cover. The mouse is snuggled into its teacup bed asleep on the first page, stretching awake on the title page, munching a carrot on the final page, increasingly endearing in its various colorful Fimo modeling-compound incarnations. Equally captivating are the two black cats on an orange cat mat and the three orange snakes in a blue snake lake, up to ten and through several colors. The book surprises and amuses with every pagethe five pink pigs in yellow pig wigs are particularly winsomedrawing in young learners as well as those who already grasp counting and colors.

Toronto Parent

Ostensibly a vehicle for teaching numbers from one to ten as well as colors, One Grey Mouse also offers wonderful wordplay and a simple story as we watch the grey mouse scamper from picture to picture gathering flowers and a tasty carrot snack. Author and illustrator tie the images together nicely; grey mouse who lives in a black teapot, takes her nap in a cozy tea pot.
The pictures are so tactile that little fingers will be trying to pick them off the page.

Quill and Quire

It might seem that nothing new could possibly be done with the counting book, but Katherine Burton and Kim Fernandes have created a little volume which is vivid, fresh, and thoroughly charming. While the illustrations in One Grey Mouse are what immediately attract attention, the simplicity of its text is very skillful. The pattern is number, colour, animal, in/on a colour, animal, object, rhyming so that “Five pink pigs in yellow pig wigs,” are followed by “Six yellow bees in a green bee tree,” then by “Seven green frogs on a brown frog log.” The little rhymes are so well chosen as to seem inevitable. The book invites participation, in chanting it aloud, laughing at the antics, hunting for the mouse, stroking the cuddly bears, or, best of all, getting out the clay and trying it ourselves.