Akihtásowina

Ann-Margaret Day-Osborne, a Cree Language teacher, has produced an almost perfect bilingual one to ten counting book. Each pair of facing pages treats a single number. On the left-hand page, the Cree word for the number appears at the top of the page and at the bottom its English equivalent. In between the two words is the appropriate Cree number syllabic.

The right-hand page is a full-page colour photograph of what is to be counted. For example, the item accompanying péyak/one is a teddy bear. Though a little girl appears on the book’s cover, all of the objects Day-Osborne has selected are taken from the world of a child, things like blocks, rubber duckies, stacking rings, crayons and balloons. Varied colours and/or white space make it easy for the book’s intended audience to identify exactly what is to be counted.

Akihtásowina is an excellent introductory counting book. For those who don’t speak Cree, a pronunciation guide would have been helpful. Nonetheless, Akihtásowina is a book for all homes and libraries serving this age group.