Twenty guinea pigs do their best to keep their small boat afloat in this amusing subtraction picture book by the creator of One Guinea Pig Is Not Enough. 10,000 first printing.
Duke was born in New York City on August 1, 1956. She had said that reading was a favorite pastime all through childhood, and in an interview for Something About the Author noted that Louise Fitzhugh’s Harriet the Spy was a fictional character she modeled, right down to keeping tabs on the people in her neighborhood. “I think I owe Harriet my first conscious awareness of the act of writing as important and meaningful work,� she said.
She attended Duke University in the mid 1970s and also took art classes in New York City, which helped solidify her growing ambition to create picture books. Her first book, The Guinea Pig ABC (Dutton) was published in 1983 and received warm accolades for its humor and inventiveness. She followed up her debut with Guinea Pigs Far and Near (Dutton, 1984) and several other titles starring the popular critters. Duke went on to craft more than 20 picture books, writing and illustrating her own work, as well as providing illustrations for other authors including Joanna Cole and William Hooks. Duke married cartoonist Sidney Harris in 1985.
This was a fun book about counting with guinea pigs. It was a little mixed up in places which was easy for me to follow along with, but a little more difficult for the kids. The illustrations were fun though and the story was creative.
Summary & Review/Response: Twenty guinea pigs set out on an adventure sailing across the water. Slowly, guinea pigs start jumping/falling off of the boat. However, they do so in a way that shows counting, adding, and subtracting. Large colored numbers appear in the illustrations to represent the number of guinea pigs leaving or staying. Eventually, after nineteen of the guinea pigs leave the boat, only one remains. I enjoyed this book. I thought it was a wonderful example of a counting book. I liked how instead of just counting one to ten, the author counted backwards using subtraction. The illustrations were detailed and fun to look at as well. I liked that the numbers were large and colorful so they would stand out in the illustrations. Overall, I would highly recommend this book to beginning readers and children that are learning to count.
Twenty guinea pigs are too many for a boat, and only when one leaves can he really enjoy it. During the process of taking away the guinea pigs, it is a fun way to teach children math. It tells a subtraction story.The book is full of funny,cute and lively guinea pigs that kids will really like.
A great story to introduce the idea of subtraction. There are twenty guinea pigs on the boat and that is just too many! So, they start being subtracted by guinea pigs going off to do their own thing.
Great illustrations - what can I say, I'm a sucker for guinea pigs.