50 Books You Can Count On

from Counting Crows

1. Anno, Mitsumasa. (1977). Anno's Counting Book. New York: Crowell.
2. Appelt, Kathy. (2015). Counting Crows. Illustrated by Rob Dunlavey. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers.
3. Atinuke. (2017). Baby Goes to Market. Illustrated by Angela Brooksbank. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.
4. Aylesworth, Jim. (1988). One Crow: A Counting Rhyme. New York: Lippincott Williams & Wilkins.
5. Bang, Molly. (1996). Ten. Nine. Eight. New York: Greenwillow.
6. Baker, Keith. (2004). Quack and Count. New York: HMH Books.
7. Berkes, Marianne. (2007). Over in the Jungle: A Rainforest Rhyme. Illustrated by Jeanette Canyon. CA: Dawn Publications.
8. Black, Birdie. (2017). Warthog. Illustrated by Rosalind Beardshaw. Somerville, MA: Nosy Crow.
9. Blackstone, Stella. (2006). My Granny Went to the Market. Illustrated by Christopher Corr. New York: Barefoot Book.
10. Bloom, Valerie. (1997). Fruits: A Caribbean Counting Poem. Illustrated by David Axtell. New York: Henry Holt.
11. Boynton, Sandra. (1984 ). Doggies: A Counting and Barking Book. New York: Little Simon.
12. Brown, Anthony. (2013). One Gorilla. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.
13. Calmenson, Stephanie. (1995). Dinner at the Panda Palace. New York: HarperCollins.
14. Carle, Eric. (1998). 1, 2, 3 To The Zoo. New York: Puffin Books.
15. Cave, Kathryn. (2003). One Child, One Seed: A South African Counting Book. Photographs by Gisèle Wulfsohn. New York: Henry Holt.
16. Clark, Emma Chichester. (2003). Mimi's Book of Counting. Charlesbridge Publisher.
17. Crews, Donald. (1975). Ten Black Dots. New York: Greenwillow.
18. Cyrus, Kurt. (2016). Billions of Bricks: A Counting Book about Building. New York: Henry Holt.
19. Dahl, Michael. (2004). On the Launch Pad: A Counting Books about Rockets. New York: Picture Window Books.
20. Edwards, Pamela Duncan. (2000). Roar! A Noisy Counting Book. Illustrated by Henry Cole. New York: Katherine Tegen Books.
21. Ehrhardt, Karen. (2015). This Jazz Man. Illustrated by R. G. Roth. New York: HMH Books.
22. Elhert, Lois. (2001). Fish Eyes: A Book You Can Count On. New York: HMH Books.
23. Falconer, Ian. (2002). Olivia Counts. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers.
24. Falwell, Cathryn. (1995). Feast for 10. New York: HMH Books.
25. Feelings, Muriel. (1992). Moja Means One: Swahili Counting Book. Illustrated by Tom Feelings. New York: Puffin Books.
26. Fleming, Denise. (2012). The First Day of Winter. New York: SquareFish.
27. Giganti, Paul. (1999). Each Orange Had 8 Slices. Illustrated by Donald Crews. New York: 
28. Golub, Matthew. ().  Ten Oni Drummers. Illustrated by Kazuko G. Stone. New York: Lee & Low Books.
29. Isadora, Rachel. (2009). Twelve Dancing Princess. New York: Penguin.
30. Isadora, Rachel. (1998). A South African Night. New York: Penguin.
31. Jackson, Ellen. (2016). Octopuses One to Ten. Illustrated by Robin Page. New York: Simon & Schuster.
32. Katz, Karen. (2003). Counting Kisses: A Kiss and Read Book. New York: Little Simon.
33. Lazar, Tara. (2017). 7 Ate 9. Illustrated by Ross Macdonald.  New York: Disney-Hyperion.
34. Lessac, Frané. (2005). Island Counting 1 2 3. London: Walker Books.
35. Lin, Grace. (2008). One is a Drummer. Illustrated by Roseanne Thong. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books.
36. Luján, Jorge. (2014). Numeralia. Illustrated by Isol. Toronto, ON: Groundwood Books.
37. Mannis, Celeste Davidson. (2005). One Leaf Rides the Wind. New York: Puffin.
38. Merriam, Eve. (1996). Twelve Ways to Get to 11. Illustrated by Bernie Karlan. New York: Aladdin.
39. Morales, Yuyi. (2003). Just a Minute: A Trickster Tale and Counting Book. San Francisco, CA: Chronicle Books.
40. Nagara, Innosanto. (2015). Counting on Community. Berkeley, CA: Triangle.
41. Otoshi, Kathryn. (2014). Two. KO Kids Books.
42. Otoshi, Kathryn. (2010). Zero. KO Kids Books.
43. Otoshi, Kathryn. (2008). One. KO Kids Books.
44. Pinczes, Elinor J. (1999). One Hundred Hungry Ants. New York: HMH Books.
45. Root, Phyllis. (2001). One Duck Stuck. Illustrated by Jane Chapman. Somerville, MA: Candlewick.
46. Sendak, Maurice. (1991). One Was Johnny. New York: HarperCollins.
47. Shannon, George. (2015). One Family. Illustrated by Blanca Gomez. New York: Farrar, Straus and Giroux.
48. Sturges, Philemon. (1997). Ten Flashing Fireflies. Illustrated by Anna Vojtech. New York: NorthSouth.
49. Thong, Roseanne. (2014). One Is a Drummer: A Book of Numbers. Illustrated by Grace Lin. 
50. Walsh, Ellen Stoll. (1995). Mouse Paint. New York: HMH Books.

 

"The One With the Foul Ball, Waving for TV"

Ordinary Angels (M.A. Reilly,  Dún Laoghaire, 2008)

I.

Roughly 4 ½ years before great uncle Paddy, then a 16 year old boy, quit Ireland and shipped off to Manhattan, 16,000 British troops landed at the ports of Dún Laoghaire and Dublin--brought there to suppress the 1916 Easter Rising--an Irish attempt at independence.  From 1821 to 1920,  Dún Laoghaire port was named Kingstown port. The original name, Dunleary named after the 5th century king,  Lóegaire mac Néill, was dropped in the1820s when King George IV paid a visit.

Counting is what colonizers do best.

Nearly 40 years after Paddy left Ireland, I came to the States to live. I was born 50 kilometers north of Dún Laoghaire. Then I was called, Olivia Muldoon.  A few decades later I'd visit  Dún Laoghaire in late September with Rob and Devon. It was there I would make the image that tops this post. 

It was late day at the Forty-Foot promontory where the locals swim. We'd been told it had been an unusual September--warm and sunny, unlike the cool and wet summer that preceded it. As such, many were swimming that early fall day and the temperature rose to nearly 21 degrees Celsius. Warm by Irish standards, indeed. I was fascinated by the trio and how the shadows behind them looked almost like wings.  The image would later be published in B & W magazine.

Dev spent that day playing at the promontory splashing in the water and looking for treasure among the rocks when the tide was mostly out. Rob wrote notes in the small notebook he carried--always pen to paper, recorded sounds, and chatted people up. I watched and made images. We all visited the Martello Tower--the very place where Ulysses opens and later we found a small restaurant off of Harbour Road and talked long into the night and ate well.

II.

I understand Ireland largely as a place of narrative. Story leads to story. Ambiguity is embraced. This was how I was raised. And so on another holiday we criss-crossed the island without much of an agenda and when we needed to be at a particular place, we most often found ourselves lost.  More times than not regardless of who we asked, we were told, You're on good road. Just up beyont.  And oddly, all were correct, for eventually we found where we wanted to go and in truth the roads were all good.

Unlike the Irish whose stories and language wind like their roads depositing the subject often at the end of the sentence, we here in the States favour counting and the most direct route. We teach this to our young with increasing precision. With nearly 30 years of high stakes testing and now the Common Core giving shape to schooling, we have lessened the space for stories at school and now require our children to fit their narrative selves into dull, five-paragraph frames. We then call these changes, rigor.

Don't dawdle, we tell them.
Don't waste time, we chide.
Be precise, we warn.

These admonitions give us purpose. Set us right. But mostly, they work to conceal ambiguity by replacing it with an imposed value.  Numbers mark us. When you count, you count.

Douglas Goetsch in his poem, Counting, helped us to see the irony of the act. He wrote:

...That’s all any child wants: to count.
That’s all I wanted to be, the millionth
customer, the billionth burger sold, the one
with the foul ball, waving for TV.

The spaces between what we name by numbers are most often temporary placeholders we use to mark and unmark our possible selves.