Super Hero Squad: Iron Man Springs Into Action!

Background

Here's another "Super Hero Squad" book by Little, Brown & Co. This one is 6" x 6". It has 12 pages counting inside covers. The "pages" are very thick card, making the whole thing about 3/8 ths of an inch thick.

Story Details

"General Ross alerts Iron Man to trouble in Super Hero City. Where is the Super Hero Squad? Iron Man zooms off to find his friends."

"Wolverine and Cyclops are ready to rumble! One, two, three heroes are ready to go."

Hey, this is a counting book! Surprise! No indication of that on the cover, but indeed, it's a count to ten book. Add the Hulk and Thing and Spider-Man. "Four five six heroes are on the way!"

Oh... oops. There's a problem. The words say "Four five six" on this page, and there are six heroes. So... how does that help kids learn to count? Think about it for a moment. Six heroes. Check. So let's count to six. "Four five six!" Nope! Counting starts at one!

Add Iceman, Torch, Thor and Silver Surfer. Now there's ten of them. Let's count to ten.

"Seven, eight, nine, ten super heroes!"

Dammit! There you go again. That is NOT how you teach kids to count to ten! You start with ONE! It's a very well established concept, and it's not complicated. The "natural" or "counting" numbers start with unity!

General Comments

Shame really. Otherwise this is a well-constructed and colorful book, at a fair sort of price.

Overall Rating

The fundamental goal of a "counting book" is to train young minds to enumerate items. This one falls down at the first hurdle. Two webs.