Customer Reviews

Count Your Way Through Rus

5 star:		(4)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

I purchased this book for my son and liked it so much I purchased chihteereh more, for other friends whom children are from Russia as well. An informational, introduction to 1-2-3's in russian.

I think Jim Haskins had a cute idea and was more interested in making a quick buck than in getting the facts right.

The first page of the Russian counting book contains a glaring factual error: There is NOT only one Kremlin in Russia. In addition to the one in Moscow, there is a white brick kremlin in the Tatar capital, (cf http://www.kcn.ru/tat_en/kazan/kazkreml.html); Kremlins were very common in the 8-15th centuries throughout Russia, and were usually built of wood. The Moscow and Kazan' kremlins have survived b/c they are stone. There may be others; I am not an expert...

Count Your Way Through Russia is a cute look at how to count from one to ten in Russian that also imparts little bits of knowledge about Russia and its people. Each number is given its numeric symbol, the word for the number in Russian and a pronunciation guide. Additionally, there is about a paragraph on each page...the book tells us there is one Kremlin, you need two snow shoes in winter, that you need five people to dance the Preplyas (pare-ush-plee-us) and so on. Unfortunately the book also has a few errors. There is an introductory blurb explaining that Russia is one of 15 republics that make up the U.S.S.R., which is no longer true. This may have been corrected in later printings, but it's still in the copy I got from my local library. Additionally, the first page, for number one...there isn't one ONLY Kremlin, there are two. The second being a white brick structure located in the Tartar capital and really, at one time the Kremlin's were quite common, but made out of wood, so many no longer exist today. I could only see my way to giving this book 3 stars because of the errors, though the first may simply be due to an out of date printing of the book. Overall, it's a cute way to introduce numbers in another language, because you get the numbers AND a wealth of information about the country and it's culture to go along with the numbers!

Nice little book and fun to read. Both of my daughters are Russian and love to bring in this book for international day at school.

This is an excellent way for children to learn numbers in Russian. The pictures and words are age appropriate for children.

This book is a nice way to learn some facts about Russia as well as the counting system and some Russian words. Things like that mean a lot to my Russian students and others. The whole series is rather nice and this book is a nice addition to my collection.