Ten Little Fingers and Ten Little Toes
A teacher’s look at why this book belongs in the Lap Listeners stage.
Why it fits Lap Listeners (for babies in their first year, when books are about your voice, not the plot)
Babies born all over the world share the same ten fingers and toes in this rolling rhyme. The counting refrain invites touching each finger and toe as you read - rhythm plus sensation. A celebration of sameness across difference, from the very first read.
What makes it special
Its quiet radicalism is showing babies from everywhere sharing one refrain and one lap. Helen Oxenbury's round, luminous babies are the gold standard of infant illustration — each one a specific person, not a generic cherub. It plants global belonging at an age when the world is otherwise shrinking to a single nursery.
From the publisher
Rhyming text compares babies born in different places and in different circumstances, but they all share the commonality of ten little fingers and ten little…
About Mem Fox
Mem Fox is described on her own site as Australia's foremost writer of picture books for young children; she is a retired Associate Professor of Literacy Studies at Flinders University, where she taught teachers for 24 years. She has written more than 45 children's books, published in 23 languages, plus five non-fiction books for adults including Reading Magic.
Fox was born in Melbourne and grew up in Rhodesia, now Zimbabwe, where her parents were teaching missionaries at Hope Fountain Mission. Possum Magic began as a university course assignment; it was rejected nine times over five years before Omnibus Books took it, and it is now Australia's bestselling children's book.
Also by this author: Possum Magic · Where Is the Green Sheep? · Koala Lou
More from “Sing It, Say It Again”
This book is part of The Best Books for Babies: 30 Teacher Picks (Lap Listeners) in our guide The Best Children’s Books by Age — 120 books chosen by the Montessori-certified teachers at Creative Minds Montessori in Frisco, TX. Come see how we build readers →
Nobody paid for this review — not the author, not the publisher — and the store link above earns us nothing. Our only interest is the reader this book fits.