From apple to zigzag and from 1 to 10, Neepin Auger’s books for children will be certain to educate and entertain preschoolers, parents and teachers alike. Inspired by her training as a First Nations artist and her academic work leading to a degree in education, Discovering Words and Discovering Numbers contain brightly coloured, originally created artwork featuring images and concepts familiar to everyone.
In addition to the English words presented, the books also contain the French and Cree equivalents, placing these among some of the most dynamic and useful board books on the market, perfectly suitable for the classroom, library and nursery.
Now Discovering Numbers is basically a triple-language counting board book (English, French and Cree) for very young children (covering the numbers one through ten, simply, basically, but beautifully). The accompanying illustrations by Cree author/illustrator Neepin Auger (who is the daughter of renowned First Nations artist Dale Auger) are bright, colourful, delightfully uncluttered (and Auger also for the most part depicts countable objects that have cultual sigificance to and for First Nations children, such as feathers, sweetgrass braids, teepees and the like). And while personally, I definitely would have liked and appreciated a pronunciation key for especially the Cree numbers (as well as perhaps also a bit of supplemental information on the Cree language and Cree cultural practices) this is really just my scholarly self talking and is actually rather above and beyond the scope of this book (since first and foremost Discovering Numbers is just a board book introducing the numbers one to ten, which it achieves most successfully I might add). Very highly recommended and truly a perfect first picture book of numbers for toddlers (and of course, Discovering Numbers is also a perfect language teaching vehicle and tool to introduce toddlers to counting from one to ten in English, Cree and French).
This book works for really young children, or also children new to a second language. We read these with Kait doing the French and Maddie the English. And I like that they are exposed to indigenous-focused vocabulary.