The Twelve Days of Winter: A School Counting Book
By Deborah Lee Rose, illustrated by Carey Armstrong-Ellis
Abrams Books for Young Readers; $14.95
32 pp.; ISBN-10: 0810954729

Review by Amy Brozio-Andrews

A schoolchildren's wintertime adaptation of "The Twelve Days of Christmas", Deborah Lee Rose's The Twelve Days of Winter chronicles the presentation of numerous winter-related gifts and activities to a classroom of young students by their teacher, from holiday-themed and seasonal things like jingling bells and snowflakes to educational things like "weather words" and bird feeders. Kids (and their reading parents) will find it hard to resist slipping into song -- the book's familiar style will tempt you into sing-songing your storytelling with the melody of the traditional Christmas carol.

The recognition of the tune makes the story immediately engaging for the reader, and Rose's list of wintertime activities is fun and familiar to young students at the same time. She chooses ordinary items that lend themselves well to silly misadventures -- for example, the worms ("nine worms for watching") spell out HELLO and then SOS in their glass tank as one kid decides to move them from one place to another, and the list of weather words ("four weather words") posted on the classroom wall grows to include sleet, slushy, hail, blizzard, and cabin fever by the end of the book. While the book's got strong appeal for young readers overall, it's preschoolers and early elementary school kids who'll likely find the most humor in it.

Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis, author and illustrator of The Twelve Days of Kindergarten, support counting skills and number recognition with The Twelve Days of Winter; numerals are printed in large red font at the beginning of each new verse, and the counting is repetitive: as each new gift is given, the narrative re-counts all the ones that have come before, offering plenty of practice for counting to twelve.

Carey Armstrong-Ellis' funny illustrations reflect the natural state of school kids -- full of energy and inquisitiveness. Young readers will recognize the students in the book from page to page; their personalities shine through (one child persistently has his finger in his nose, another little girl's always clinging to the teacher's leg, while another is always dressed in fancy finery, like a princess). The classroom teacher manages to keep her good humor despite the inevitable chaos and crises, although parents will surely recognize the look of vague desperation in her eyes by the time you get to "eight bells for ringing."

The Twelve Days of Winter is more than just a fun seasonal storybook, though. There are plenty of points for discussion along the way too, from science to English and math building skills. On day one, the students get one bird feeder; on day four, the kids get four weather words. These and other verses provide a great opportunity to talk about feeding animals in winter, describing the weather, etc., using the examples in the book to start you off.

Blending a lively narrative and colorful, detailed illustrations, The Twelve Days of Winter is an enjoyable picture book with lots to discover within its pages.