Customer Reviews

Missing Mittens (MathStart 1)

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

 

 

We loved Murphy's "Henry the Fourth", but we didn't particularly like this book. While the artwork is delightful, the rhymes are clumsy, and worse, the premise just is not very interesting. At least, finding out what happened to the cow's utter-mittens did not engage my kids (almost 3 and 5).

On the plus side, the book did give my almost 5 y.o. and myself a place to start talking about even and odd. And the way that the artist showed the pairs of mittens and the missing mitten in outline made it easy to point out what the story was taking about.

But I'd give this book a pass unless you are desparate to find an edutainment introduction to even/odd numbers.

This book is quite cute from an entertainment perspective. Farmer Bill wakes up to a snowstorm one day to find that he is missing one of his mittens. When he goes to his barns, he discovers one by one, that each of his animals is missing a mitten (be prepared to explain what a cow's udder is for!). They finally see the goat at the top of the hill who is the culprit - he's munching on all the mittens! When they're all inside, the goat decides to make lunch on Farmer Bill's new coat. Very cute story and throughout the book, the illustrations indicate how many mittens the animals have (i.e. three for the cow) and "odd" is written under the three mittens, and the next picture is of four mittens with "even" written under them. Right now, my little one thinks that odd means just "weird" so that concept is coming a little slowly. Be prepared to go into a full explanation of numbers when you read this book. It definitely takes some time to do but the story makes it well worth it. Ours has to be read nightly. Highly recommend!

By far, the illustrations are the best part of this book. The wonderful depictions of Farmer Bill, his farm and animals give the book much more depth than the forced rhymes. And frankly, they also do a better job of getting across the concepts of odd and even.

My preschool boys greatly enjoy the twist at the end of the book, where there's a glimpse of the next item that will be found to be missing. The fact that the found mittens are drawn as having parts missing pleases them also. It provides a great topic for discussion.

The follow-up suggestions are rather disappointing and unimaginative. The book certainly isn't helped by their inclusion.

I'd rate this as an average children's book. The basic story is quite cute, but the illustrations make the book.

My five-year-old son loves this entire series and thoroughly enjoyed Missing Mittens. As did I, for that matter. We are living in a warm climate, so my son was immediately drawn to the snowy setting. He enjoyed the story and definitely grasped the odds and evens concept as we were reading through the book. I read a lot of books aloud to my son--both fiction and nonfiction and ranging from picture books to chapter books such as Tales of My Father's Dragon. While some reviewers seemed to find this story lacking, my son and I both enjoyed it. I have a huge math and numbers fan in my son and I love how this book provides him with an introduction to so many concepts that interest him. I used to teach and definitely think this would be great in the classroom as well. This is a great series!

This book is great for beginning math. My 2 year old grandson loves to read it with me.

My son has really enjoyed this book. The story takes place on a farm during the winter time. Perfect story for this time of the year. Farmer Bill is trying to figure out what is happening to all of the mittens.