How Many Donkeys?: An Arabic Counting Tale

by Margaret Read MacDonald

2010 Best English Language Children's Book, Sharjah International Book FairJouha gets confused counting his donkeys while leading them to market.Jouha is loading his donkeys with dates to sell at the market. How many donkeys are there? His son helps him count ten, but once the journey starts, things change. First there are ten donkeys, then there are nine! When Jouha stops to count again, the lost donkey is back. What's going on? Silly Jouha doesn't get it, but by the end of the story, wise readers will be counting correctly−and in Arabic!

Genres: Picture Books, Folklore, Middle East, Mathematics, Cultural, Counting, Childrens

Kindle Edition

First published September 1, 2009

About the author

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Biography
Dr. Margaret Read MacDonald travels the world telling stories....always on the lookout for more great folktales to share. She shapes these found stories into tellable tales which anyone can share with ease. Filling her folktale collections with these delightful tales, she creates perfect read alouds for you and your family. MRM wants everyone to experience the joy of a beautifully told tale. She hopes you will read them a few times...then put down the book...put down the electronic device...and just TELL the story to your children!

Some of her favorite folktales she expands into picture books...hopefully with delightfully readable language while will roll right out of your mouth. Share them with your children and then....act the tales out! Revisit the tales by TELLING them! At bedtime. While on the road. Fill your pockets with great stories to share wherever you go.

Joining her Folklore Ph.D. with her 30 plus years as a children's librarian, Margaret brings folktales to life in playful, lilting language which should delight both reader and listener.

See her performance schedule at: www.margaretreadmaconald.com

Reviews

[Manybooks · Rating 5 out of 5]

Whether children (from about the age of four or five onwards) know a little bit of Arabic or none at all, the extremely repetitive (but also in my opinion totally fun and engaging) nature of How Many Donkeys?: An Arabic Counting Tale should likely have readers and/or listeners be able to count from one to ten in Arabic by the end of the book. And I do love as well as hugely appreciate that How Many Donkeys?: An Arabic Counting Tale shows not just how the numbers from one to ten are written in both Latin and Arabic script but also includes the corresponding Arabic numerals as well (since this very nicely points out that how we write numbers is indeed based on the latter).

So both textually and equally so visually (as Carol Liddiment's colourful and descriptive artwork for How Many Donkeys?: An Arabic Counting Tale completely and wonderfully mirrors Margaret Read MacDonald and Nadia Jameel Taibah's featured text and vice versa) children should definitely enjoy figuring out why main protagonist Jouha just cannot seem to figure out how many donkeys he has in his caravan. Because while Jouha throughout How Many Donkeys?: An Arabic Counting Tale keeps thinking that one of his donkeys keeps running off and then reappearing, by the second or the third time this supposedly occurs, most kids will probably and hopefully realise that Jouha is neither lucky nor unlucky but is simply always forgetting to count the donkey (the ass) he is riding.

Now there is northing specific to Islam as a religion to be encountered in How Many Donkeys?: An Arabic Counting Tale, but the presented story is certainly cultural as authors Read MacDonald and Jameel Taibah are in fact retelling a traditional Middle Eastern folk tale in the guise of a counting book, and that the Arabian often wise but in How Many Donkeys?: An Arabic Counting Tale of course rather silly fool Jouha is also known as Goha in Egypt and as Nasredeen Hodja in Turkey (with all of this background and even more being shared by Margaret Read MacDonald and Nadia Jameel Taibah at the at the beginning of How Many Donkeys?: An Arabic Counting Tale in an author's note that is folkloricly excellent and thus also ups my rating for How Many Donkeys?: An Arabic Counting Tale from four to five stars).

But I do have to rather vehemently point out that I DO NOT even remotely recommend the Kindle edition of How Many Donkeys?: An Arabic Counting Tale, as it is indeed and truly utter and complete trash, worth less than one star as a rating (and should really and truly not even be on the market anymore either, and see below as to why).

REVIEW OF THE KINDLE EDITION

Well, regarding the Kindle edition of How Many Donkeys?: An Arabic Counting Tale, yes, I have decided to NOT EVEN TRY. For honestly, ALL of Margaret Read MacDonald and Nadia Jameel Taibah's printed words for How Many Donkeys?: An Arabic Counting Tale, they are so ridiculously minuscule in the Kindle format that even wearing my reading glasses or using a magnifying glass I cannot actually figure out any of them (and there also is NO WAY to adequately zoom in to make the words appear larger and thus more legible either).

And really, it is in my admittedly not at all humble opinion absolutely and totally unacceptable with any kind of literature (but especially for books meant to be read aloud to and used for children) that a Kindle edition of a given piece of writing is so small, is so horribly tiny letter and font size wise that basically NO ONE can actually even figure out what the words, what the presented narrative is in fact supposed to mean and to convey without having to guess, so yes and honestly, DO NOT consider downloading, DO NOT consider purchasing the Kindle edition of How Many Donkeys?: An Arabic Counting Tale (and frankly, even Carol Liddiment's artwork for How Many Donkeys?: An Arabic Counting Tale is tiny and pretty horribly blurry in the Kindle format, but at least unlike with Read MacDonald and Jameel Tabiah's printed words, one can still sort of figure out what the pictures are supposed to visually represent, although not all that clearly either).

[Dolly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a fun tale of a man who keeps miscounting his donkeys as he travels with ten of them to the market and back. Each time he is riding on a donkey, he forgets to count the one he's on and when he only counts nine, he fears he has lost one. This happens over and over and he never learns from his mistake.

While this makes for a rather silly and redundant tale, it also offers lots of repetition and practice saying the Arabic words for one through ten. Our girls thought it was a funny story.

This book was selected as one of the books for the August 2014 - Counting discussion at the Picture-Book Club in the Children's Books Group here at Goodreads.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

So short I read it at the shelf at the library. Fun, but simple. I would have given it 3.5 stars but I rounded up for the sake of the average community rating, which should not be so low as it is, imo.

edit:
Otoh, I looked at a digital edition just now, and I see that the typeface is small and not easy to read on a laptop screen, probably worse on a tablet. I believe that in our digital age that publishers & designers need to think more about how a design is going to be viewed... and picture-books are probably often being viewed on child-size 8 or 9 inch screens.

(Also those of us who are getting older but who still like picture-books, for example grandparents and teachers, also need to be able to read the text without squinting.)

[Beverly · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a silly, humorous Arabian folktale, in which the silly father always forgets to count the donkey on which he is sitting. The repetition of counting in Arabic on every other page will reinforce and help young children remember the Arabic numbers from 1 through 10. The humorous, colorful illustrations are a perfect fit for the text. I especially like the puzzled look on the face of the father every time he thinks a donkey is lost.

[Jenny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Great multicultural counting book. My children thought Jouha was rather silly for neglecting to count the donkey he is riding. Fun to learn to count to ten in Arabic ...and especially neat that you can hear the author count to 10 on her website. I appreciated the author's note that explained the basis of Juha's character in Middle Eastern folk tales.

[Shawn Thrasher · Rating 2 out of 5]

Margaret Read MacDonald is one of my favorite authors of folklore re-tellings, but this one fell flat for me.

[SamZ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute tale about a man who tries to keep track of his donkeys while traveling to market.

[Prabhat sharma · Rating 3 out of 5]

How Many Donkeys? An Arabic Counting Tale by Margaret Reid MacDonald, Illustrator Carol Liddiment, Nadia Jameel Taibah – Children’s Illustrated Colour Picture Book- The book narrates a Middle East story of Nasurddin Hoja and Jouha who is loading his donkeys with dates to sell at the market. He is confused about the number of donkeys in his caravan. His son helps him count ten, but once the journey starts, things change. First there are ten donkeys, then there are nine! When Jouha stops to count again, the lost donkey is back. Silly Jouha is not counting the donkey on which he is sitting. Coloured pictures help the reader to relate to the story. I have read the Hindi language translation of this book.

[A Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I like that this book counts in Arabic and English. I checked it out from the library to consider adding it to my classroom collection. I think the kids would like the silliness of Jouha thinking he has lost a donkey again and again when in actuality he is not counting the donkey he is riding. I love that the children in my class will see Arabic numbers, see characters from a different part of the world, and enjoy the silly story. It is also worth noting that Saudi storyteller Nadia Jameel Taibah was part of the creation of this children's book! I certainly intend to add this one to our library.

[Janet · Rating 3 out of 5]

A folklore story from the Arab world which features what is referred to as a “wise fool” in folklore characters. This brief story has a “wise fool” who has loaded baskets of dates on to his donkeys to take to market. On the journey sometimes he counts nine donkeys and sometimes he thinks one comes back and he has ten. This particular story is from the Saudi culture.
Interesting to see the words written out for the numbers in Arabic. Also included is a one page of information about this folklore motif and the various countries where it appears
Good title for teaching international themes.

[KatieS · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book on the DAWCL. The reading I found on YouTube. I felt like this would be as good as me reading a children’s book in German. The reader appeared to know Arabic but wasn’t completely comfortable with it.

I did, however, start counting with him about half way through. My son, 3, also began saying some of he words along with the reader. While I’m not sure I would play this video for my son again, I would definitely get the book so that he could learn a bit of a new language.

[Library Lady Terri · Rating 2 out of 5]

I'm struggling with the idea that this story wasn't written by a native speaker but it was checked by a native speaker so I'm a little more okay with it.

I don't think the gag for the story line was explained very well. Each time Jouha counted his donkey he forgot to count the donkey he was riding so he always thought he was missing a donkey. He would then get off of the donkey and count again at his son's urging and he would "find" the missing donkey. It was not portrayed well.

[Sandra · Rating 3 out of 5]

Silly and repetitive, (certainly wouldn't fly for storytime) but probably good for starting counters and to see how soon they catch his mistake! Also nice to have a change of setting and simple way to show not all writing is left to right!

[Jo Oehrlein · Rating 4 out of 5]

Cute book counting the donkeys 1 to 10 many times.
Numbers are in English and Arabic.
We see them in words and numerals in English and in Latin script and Arabic script in Arabic.

Could be useful even with slightly older kids when talking about edge cases in counting/probability.

[Sharrell Green · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love how this book has numbers that is written in another language, which I feel like is important because kids are learning new things. I just wish it was a little bit more of an actual story though.

[Kendra Loera · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book is great for beginner counters.

[Elizabeth Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

learning is fun, great illustrations, fun views, easy to follow along ... kind of cute/funny.

[Jessie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lots of repeated counting to 9 or 10, making the error of not counting the donkey he's sitting on. The man notices the pattern, but never really figures it out.

[Israa · Rating 5 out of 5]

It’s so funny. Students love it!

[Stephanie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very bright, colorful, engaging pictures, but the story was so repetitive, that we got tired of it.

[Monica Shellhamer · Rating 5 out of 5]

The book How Many Donkeys? An Arabic Counting Tale, is somewhat of a riddle that teaches another language. Through the story, students learn how to count from 1-10 in Arabic as they follow the story of Jouha. When first finding this story, I thought that it was going to be something like Ten Little Monkeys and counting would be more of a subtraction story. What I didn’t know was that the story of Jouha is beloved in middle eastern folklore. This book would be a great addition to a bilingual classroom, because it would probably be something that the students would connect to. It is also a great way to get students engaged in the story. Why is it that when Jouha is riding a donkey, why is he counting nine? Why does he count ten when he walks? What is he missing?

[Ashley Exford]

The first thing I have to say about "How Many Donkeys" is WOW!The book itself was great, but the words in it was not so great because I could not pronounce anything. I know children would most likely get annoyed at this book because they would not be able to sound out the numbers in Arabic. It would be a book I would want to read if we were learning about multicultural's, but not for fun unless the students are able to read it.

[Kathryn Hogan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very interesting book that is not only in English, but Arabic as well. It is a tale about a little boy and his counting skills. This book would be great when introducing different cultures as well as if you are dealing with the current news of today. I loved the illustrations and the opportunity this book gives students to see a different type of lifestyle.

[Yahya Han · Rating 4 out of 5]

Jouha is counting his donkeys with dates to sell at the market. When they live the city, everything change and Jouha and his son start losing one of their donkeys. How many donkeys are there? His son helps him count ten, but once the journey starts, things change. At the end of the story, reader will be learned Arabic numbers.

[RuthAnn · Rating 3 out of 5]

I think this is a great way to introduce children to the Arabic Language and culture! I'm excited to use it in my 2nd grade classroom. The art is especially effective at creating a picture of what life is like to the Middle East.

[Tessa Herrmann · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love this book mostly because of the artwork! The art filled up the whole page. All of the pictures had bright and vibrant color. I really liked how the story was different. It also and the little subtitle things at the bottom!

[Halli · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was neat because the children learn how to count to ten in Arabic! While reading, I found myself counting out loud and really trying to learn how to say the numbers in Arabic. It is really a fun way of learning and the illustrations are nice to look at as well. A great learning book!

[Nojood Alsudairi · Rating 5 out of 5]

A Joha tale. Beautiful tale, beautiful illustrations. Yes, it is our dr. Nadia Taiba.

[Thuraya Batterjee]

where can i buy it from?

[Morgan · Rating 3 out of 5]

"An Arabic Counting Tale"

Each time Baba counts his donkeys he forgets to count the one he is sitting on. When he gets off and counts again he finds the "lost" donkey.