This is a beautifully illustrated board book. My 10-month-old son picks it out of his book bag again and again. He loves to turn the pages and runs his fingers over many of the pictures as if trying to pluck the items off the page. My personal favorite is number 8 (butterflies hiding in a gorgeous bouquet of flowers), but my son seems to prefer the four rubber bugs.

Another feature that I like about it is that the numbers go up to twelve. So many counting books end at ten; this is a welcome change. The only negative thing I can come up with is that it is sometimes a bit challenging to find the identified number of things listed in the illustration, but I think that will be part of the fun for my son as he gets a bit older.

I really like the concept of this book. Each page has the numeral, the spelled-out number, dots equal to the number, and a photograph illustrating the number. Four different ways to illustrate a number on each page.

The problem is that it is not all that interesting.

Some of the photographs are a bit fuzzy, as though they are extreme enlargements from an original photo. And it is just hard to get excited about nine beads on a string, even though the photo is crisp and clear.

My son doesn't dislike this book, but if I pick it out to be read he only wants me to go through it once.

Another counting book that he seems to like a bit better is "Miss Spider's Tea Party : The Counting Book" by David Kirk and Antoinette White (Editor). It is different from Tana Hoban's book in that it is a story that also happens to illustrate counting, but my son wants to hear that one over and over.

If you can finish reading "Eye-Deep in Hell" and believe that WWI was not so tough to fight in, you're a stronger person than I am.

Ellis presents a graphics-heavy book that focuses on the daily life of the soldier in WWI and only discusses the political reasons and strategies of the Great War if they make a point about the way the average soldier lived.

Each two-page spread holds at least one graphic: a photo, a diagram, or a reproduced label or sign. Most of the photos and graphics are very well chosen and enhance the reader's perception of the text. Unfortunately, the reproduction quality of some of the photographs is less than stellar, and the reader is left struggling to figure out what exactly the point of the picture is.

Read this book to understand what "The Average Soldier" (Ellis attempts to include facts about the soldiers fighting on both sides) had to deal with in World War I (I think re-enactors would find this book particularly useful), but select another for the facts of the war or any particular battle.

My son received this book as a gift when he was eight monthsold. The first thing he did was to pop it in his mouth--and with fourteeth he succeeded in giving it some good bite marks. I rescued it before he could take a bite out of any of the shapes, but I believe that he could have.

Now that he is outgrowing the Must-Put-New-Thing-In-My-Mouth phase (ten months) he really enjoys the book. He loves to take the shapes out of the book (one by one at mom's insistance!) and turn them over and over in his hands and look at them from all sides. He also likes to turn the chunky but light pages and he is learning to point at the shapes when I say the corresponding sentence ("Find the yellow triangle," for example). I only wish there were more than four shapes in the book.

In short, I would recommend closely monitoring babies in the heavy chewing phase while they have this book, but it seems to be a great way for children to learn shapes and colors.

My son (now ten months old) received this book and the "Tick Tock" rattle book as gifts. Neither is a book I would choose to give another family, but "Choo Choo" is, in my opinion, the less appealing of the two.

The rattle is a clear plastic box embedded in the last page of the book with three car-shaped plastic pieces inside. The plastic pieces have a tendency to interlock and wedge in the end of the plastic box, effectively elimiating the rattle. When they are moving, my son does like the gentle rattling sound they make.

The words describe sounds that inanimate objects make, but they are not strung together to make a story and I disagree with most of the choices of sounds. For example, taxis go "beep, beep" and cars go "toot, toot," but pickup trucks go "vroom, vroom." And when was the last time you heard a motorcycle go "zoom, zoom?"

I would recommend buying a rattle and buying another book (I'm still looking for a good book on inanimate object sounds, but for animal sounds try "Mice Squeak, We Speak" by Tomie dePaola) instead of buying this rattle book. If you insist upon getting a rattle book, I would recommend "Tick Tock" (same author) over "Choo Choo."

My son (now ten months old) has a good time shaking this book. As long as the little house-shaped plastic pieces don't get stuck in the plastic tube that holds them, visible through a cut-out on every page, it makes a nice, gentle rattling sound, and there is a handy cut-out for a handle.

The words are not extremely exciting. Each page has a sound description ("A hammer goes tap, tap," for example), but the sounds are not connected in any way that I could figure out (hammer to keys to a person laughing...). This sequence ends with "My book goes rattle, rattle."

It just doesn't hold my son's attention they way other sound books do (try "Mice Squeak, We Speak" by Tomie dePaola for animal sounds), but it does make an okay toy.

"Mice Squeak, We Speak" is one of the first books my son started to reach for and request that I read to him. It is one he can listen to over and over--and, fortunately, it's fun for me to read aloud to him.

Each animal sound is introduced with a simple two-word sentance and a colorful, full-page drawing of the animal. The rhythmic, rhyming passages, coupled with the fact that the pages are turned quickly (no more than four words per two-page spread) make this a favorite for early listeners or readers.

I highly recommend this book for young children to introduce them to listening to and reading books.

"Through Iran in Disguise" documents the exploration of Iran before the fall of the Shah as seen through the eyes of a woman dressed as a man--or boy, as she was actually more believable. The text focuses equally on her perceptions of the people she meets and her perceptions of her disguise.

I was impressed with the author's descriptions of the people she met as well as her descriptions of the various decorative arts she was studying, but I found her musings upon her disguise more distracting than helpful. I was most interested in her musings in her epilogue in which she contrasted a later visit in veil with her trip dressed as a man.

I would recommend this book to anyone wanting to know more of the people who live in Iran regardless of the political situation. I was particularly impressed with her record of discussions with religious teachers. The author's attention to detail made me want to read more about the people of Iran after I had finished the book.

My son loves to hear me read this book (again and again!) and is already starting to say "Oops!" at nine months of age.

The rhythmic text and clear illustrations are (I think) what keep bringing him back to this book.

As my son grew older and more interested in colors, I looked for a book that would delight him as much as "Black on White" (also by Tana Hoban) had when he was an infant. I thought this book would fill that description, but it didn't quite fit the bill. It has great photographs, but no text.

Despite the catchy, rhyming title, each page shows only a picture of the item: No rhyming text is involved. Although my son likes the brightly colored pictures, he is more interested when I read books with rhythmic texts, such as "Blue Hat, Green Hat" by Sandra Boynton.