123s

by Charley Harper

A classic 123 counting book featuring the colorful wildlife illustrations of Charley Harper. Young children can learn how to count to ten, through the delightful and graphic images of animals created by American illustrator Charley Harper. This small gem is sure to become a classic, and is a beautifully designed and educational book for Harper fans, both young and old.

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens, Counting, Number, Mathematics, Art, Animals

20 pages, Board Book

First published October 1, 2008

About the author

A Modernist artist. He was best known for his highly stylized wildlife prints, posters and book illustrations.

Reviews

[Danielle T · Rating 5 out of 5]

A cute board book featuring Charley Harper's art (though I just remembered someone in book club gave us Charley Harper's Count the Birds which I haven't logged even though I think we read it to H at the time??) I recognize the 9 Creatures Frolicking illustration from The Giant Golden Book of Biology: An Introduction to the Science of Life's end papers.

[Janet · Rating 5 out of 5]

Nice counting board book that features art from graphic artist, Charley Harper, featuring actual art work taken from the various wildlife illustrations he created over his lifetime. The art featured in this title is very representative of his graphic style.
Unique feature of this board book is a brief paragraph of biographical information about him as well as a photo taken at his home in Cincinnati, Ohio.

[Erin · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my favorite counting book ever. The wonderful illustrations make it!

[Rey · Rating 5 out of 5]

7 fish watching ….

[kim · Rating 2 out of 5]

counting book for adult art aficionados. classy, but some of the pictures make it a little hard for little kids to count the items

[Emily · Rating 4 out of 5]

Charley Harper is a great modern illustrator, whose colorful, geometric and linear creatures look like the creations of no other artist.

This is a counting book and an animal book. But it's also a little more. It introduces children to some nouns and verbs that aren't typically found in board books of this type, and in that way it is very winning.

It's got, for instance, a "ladybug lounging" (yay for alliteration!) and "water gliders striding" (yay for assonance and consonance!). My only complaint (but I'm hardly complaining, really) is that some of the illustrations are very abstract. The chickadees are circles that resemble nuclear biohazard symbols more than they do birds; the water gliders are all lines and dots and concentric circles. Interesting, indeed, but probably difficult for very young children to conceptualize.

[Rachael · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'll be honest: though the format of the original Charley Harper boardbook was, in fact, too big for the tiny hands of infants and toddlers (you know, those really small people for whom board books are made), I liked it better than the two new skinny boardbooks. I liked having the double-page spread, all that open space. It was very soothing and pleasing to my eyes.
That being said, this is Charley Harper and I do love him so. This one has the seven fish profiles that I enjoyed from my Animal Kingdom book, as well as other amazingness. Ah, Charley Harper.

[Ami · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cool, same idea as ABCs--"best of" Charley Harper's work, as a board book for counting. Not as nice as the ABC's book, though. There was only 1-10, and some of them were blow-ups of parts of original works, which didn't do it for me. I was thinking of including the tongue-in-cheek sentence "Not as engaging as the ABCs book" in this review, but I didn't know how many of you would take me seriously. As it is, the librarian who checked this out for David (who is an acquaintance of mine) quipped, "I would have thought she had mastered these by now". Touche.

[Kit · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is my first introduction to Charley Harper's work. I'm a huge fan. And I'm happy that it's been made into a beautiful children's book, not only because I probably never would have seen it otherwise, but because I can share it with my daughter, too. Definitely a departure from the more mundane early counting books.

[Joanna · Rating 5 out of 5]

This one caught my eye on display after I had finished my purchase and so I jumped online later to order it; I'm so glad I did since the website recommended his ABC book as well and they are both grand. Nice graphically pleasing illustrations, quirky natural world choices, sturdy board book construction, and great colors. Cameron loves them too!

[Sally · Rating 4 out of 5]

Book layout is great (sparse text on left, illustration on right), and the artwork is fantastic. But I think the choice of art sometimes does not facilitate counting. Just sayin', it's a counting book....

[Loren · Rating 5 out of 5]

Jamil turned me onto these board books, I remember seeing Charley's artwork for the first time at the Cincinnati Art Museum it was love at first site. I still collect those ladybug prints!

Now there are board books for babies!!! How cool is that?!

[Emelda · Rating 4 out of 5]

Gorgeous illustrations. Much better than most 123 books! Now, if only I had a kid to compare which versions they paid more attention to...

[SmarterLilac · Rating 4 out of 5]

So cute. I feel silly and a bit deprived that I've never heard of this guy before.

[Leila T. · Rating 4 out of 5]

We read this endlessly. Thank you, Anjali!

[Mariah · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very cute board book about counting. The pictures and words are very simple. This would be a good book for kids that are just learning numbers.

[April Goff · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful Charley Harper mid century illustrations in a child's easy count to 10 board book.

[Katherine · Rating 5 out of 5]

Intriguing art. Nice big numbers. Love the bio and portrait on the last two pages.

[Megan · Rating 5 out of 5]

I love the illustrations!

[Susan Klemetti · Rating 5 out of 5]

Creatures frolicking and counted, artwork amazing

[Cynde C · Rating 4 out of 5]

Beautiful book.