Counting Arctic Animals

In this learn-to-count board book, two children, Kulak and Asa, who are clad in clothing appropriate to their northern environment, introduce youngsters to 10 animals that make the Arctic regions their home: the bowhead whale, polar bears, orcas, muskoxen, beluga whales, walruses, narwhals, caribou, seals and wolves.

Design-wise, each spread has the rhyming text and the large font focal number on one page that, in turn, faces a full-page illustration containing the requisite number of animals loosely constrained within a circle. The soft background colours are appropriate to the settings in which the animals might find themselves. Readers are provided with the numbers as both a word imbedded in the text and separately as a symbol.

A final page includes a glossary of the six collective nouns that Apunnguaq Lynge employed somewhere in her rhyming text, with one example being:

  Huddle    A huddle is a group of walruses, and can also be
    used to describe a group of penguins.

This page also references an Inuktitut word, ulu, that had been used in the text associated with the nine seals and defines the word as well as offering a guide to its pronunciation.

The text varies in its quality. A positive aspect is that it adds to children’s vocabulary and not just in terms of the animals’ names, but also in the author’s use of collective nouns, some of which, like a blessing of narwhals or a bob of seals, will likely be new to adult readers. The weakness resides the poetry which too often seems forced and just clunky. For example:

  On the rocky hills,
  a herd of muskoxen wanders around.
  “Four,” yells Kuluk.
  That is how many he found . . .
  and a mask on the ground.

That last line could be deleted as “around” and “found” complete not just a rhyme but, more importantly, a thought. The inclusion of the mask is entirely superfluous as its purpose or role is never expanded up, not even on the closing “glossary” page. A tighter text would significantly improve the “story” aspect of the book, and adult readers may find themselves choosing to edit the text as they read to their young listeners.

As a 1-10 counting book, Counting Arctic Animals works extremely well. While Apunnguaq Lynge’s superb illustrations are full of movement and action, she has not forgotten that each animal that is to be counted must be clearly differentiated.