One More River: A Noah's Ark Counting Book [Hardcover]

Joan Paley (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 4 and up

Old Noah built a great big Ark, There's one more river to cross, He patched it up with hickory bark, There's one more river to cross. So begins this well-loved song that follows the animals' journey into Noah's Ark. Count along with Noah as the animals march two by two and three by three into his giant Ark. Joan Paley's stunning and dynamic collages perfectly illustrate the traditional song.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

reschool-Kindergarten--Paley offers a counting book based on a familiar tune about Noah and the ark. She places the musical score before the story begins and encourages readers to sing along. Although the text roughly follows the familiar narrative, the emphasis is on the creatures boarding the vessel in groups from 1 to 10 before the storm begins. Colorful collages and large animals encourage even the youngest counters to come along for the ride. Flat planes and cutout shapes bring to mind a quilt pattern, particularly in the final scene of disembarkation. These illustrations differ greatly from Ed Emberley's woodcuts in Barbara Emberley's version of One Wide River to Cross (Prentice-Hall, 1966; o.p.). This new rendition will be welcomed by the storytime set eager to help Noah count his passengers.
Kathy Piehl, Minnesota State University, Mankato
Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

Ages 3-6. Paley, who created the beautiful collages in Walt Whippo's Little White Duck (2000), offers another picture book based on a song. Here the spiritual of the title becomes a counting exercise, describing groups of animals as they board the Ark in appealing rhymed couplets. Young children will love repeating the song's refrain, which appears between each line, as they count along. But it's the vibrant collages in saturated colors, rich textures, and uncluttered shapes that will really draw their attention, with hot pink flamingos and turtles with shells colored like Easter Eggs marching across spreads. An illustrator's note introduces this title, which will easily win over preschoolers getting a handle on their numbers. Gillian Engberg
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 4 and up
  
• Hardcover: 32 pages
• Publisher: Megan Tingley (April 1, 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0316607029
• ISBN-13: 978-0316607025
• Product Dimensions: 10.2 x 10.1 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,338,967 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars 4 1/2* And a one and a two and a three and a four!, May 31, 2005

By 

M. Allen Greenbaum (California) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: One More River: A Noah's Ark Counting Book (Hardcover)

This very colorful counting book tells the story of Noah and the Ark, borrowing heavily from an old spiritual rather than the somewhat fearful Biblical account. Instead of the flood's moral complexities, illustrator Joan Paley's introduction simply tells readers that there are "many days and nights of rain." This is an excellent approach for those needing only a secular version.

The spiritual's lyrics (the books shows the musical notes as well) are as follows:

"Old Noah built a great big Ark, There's one more river to cross.
He patched it up with hickory bark, There's one more river to cross.
One more river, and that's the river of Jordan.
One more river, There's one more river to cross."

In her adaptation, Joan Paley changes the first two lines to describe the varying types and numbers of animals entering the Ark; for example, above a two-page picture of two hopping kangaroos (with the number `2' in the corner), she writes:

"The animals went in two by two,
There's one more river to cross,
"Let's hop right in," said the kangaroo,
There's one more river to cross."

Similarly, three bears, four bulls, five llamas, six monkeys, seven flamingos, eight aardvarks, and nine turtles ("in slow green lines"), and ten hens arrive at the ark, and they safely cross the river Jordan and land "on Ararat." Paley specializes in collages, and these boldly colored collages of large foreground animals were constructed from paper shapes colored with watercolors, crayon, pastel, colored pencils, and oil paints. In an unusual bit of puffery, the publishers choose to inform us that "the layered shapes create a three-dimensional effect." The overlays of scribble-scrabble crayon, pastel, and pencil give the otherwise very professional drawings an appealing look, as if a child prodigy drew them, but the effect is texture, not dimension. If anything, since the emphasis is so focused on the foreground, the perspective is fairly flat. Not until the last page do we see a more conventional presentation of fore-, mid-, and background.

The writing is appropriate for the toddler age group, with a hint of humor ("Noah laughed at the monkey's tricks," above a spread showing them swinging on a branch; an elephant "chewing a honey bun" --to rhyme with "one by one"), but sometimes it's fairly mundane, and, at worse, a bit forced: "Five fluffy llamas did arrive." Still, the link with the spiritual and the big, bright animal pictures provide ample opportunity for classroom or playroom sing-along counting fun.