• Busy Little Dinosaurs / Ten Playful Tigers
• written by Betty Schwartz & Lynn Seresin
• illustrated by Luciana Navarro Powell
• published by Capstone (2015)
• Roar Score: 3/5

We’re mostly beyond board books here at Roarbots HQ, but we haven’t gotten rid of them all yet. Sometimes they still come off the shelf at bedtime (especially for the preschooler), and to be honest, they’re usually a great solution to the “one more story….pleeeeease?” line.

These two titles, by the same creative team, are marketed as “back-and-forth” books. Ten Playful Tigers is a “back-and-forth counting book,” and Busy Little Dinosaurs is a “back-and-forth alphabet book.”

Three little tigers start to RRRRRRROAR! Another joins in, and that makes FOUR.

In terms of content, there’s not a whole lot to set these apart from the countless other 1–10 and A–Z books out there. In Ten Playful Tigers, rhyming verse helps kids count from 1 to 10 by counting both butterflies and tigers. Circular cutouts on each page allow little fingers to feel fuzzy “tiger fur” as they count (always a hit with my son).

Standard for these types of books, each spread’s couplet rhymes on the new number. Except seven. I note this because far too many counting books try to rhyme the word seven and nearly always end up shoehorning in the word heaven. This book cheats by rhyming a different word, and it’s lovely to see….and read.

Busy Little Dinosaur introduces basic letter awareness by dedicating each spread to two or three letters (in alphabetical order). Those letters, identified in color, are then used in the stanza on that page. There’s no phonics or phonemic awareness here – no direct attempt to teach kids what the letters sound like. The letters are simply used at the beginning of various words.

Cutouts on the page reveal different dinosaur textures for little fingers to explore.

Why call these “back-and-forth” books? Well, once you get to the end, the books suggest you go back through and look for “surprises” you may have missed. Pay attention to what the cutouts reveal and either count butterflies or guess the letters that various objects start with. Astute kids will likely have already done this the first time through, but it can be fun to go back through and see everything again.

(Disclosure: Capstone provided copies of these books for review purposes. All opinions remain my own.)