Product Description

Poor Monkey. All she has to eat are sour lemons. One day she spies a banana tree on a faraway island, but the only way to get there is to navigate the crocodile-infested waters of the Sillabobble Sea. That’s no problem when you’re a brave and clever monkey who can count to ten and back!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #227321 in Books
• Published on: 2001-10-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 40 pages

Amazon.com Review
Counting Crocodiles may feel familiar to you, perhaps due to its folktale roots, maybe because Will Hillenbrand's artwork is so marvelously, comically, stylistically perfect, or perhaps because the delightful rhyme is so much like that of Lewis Carroll or Edward Lear. Here's a sample: "On an island in the middle of the Sillabobble Sea / lived a clever little monkey in a sour lemon tree. / She ate lemons boiled and fried, / steamed, sauteed, pureed, and dried. / She ate lemons till she cried, / 'I'm all puckered up inside!'" Meanwhile, Hillenbrand's full-page illustrations provide unending delights. In the first, most lemony of spreads, the snail is holding a whole lemon in her mouth, the fox has a glass of lemonade, and the lemon tree is laden with a blender, juicer, rolling pin, peeler, spatulas, and pans. The monkey looks suitably soured by the whole state of affairs.

On the second page, the monkey spies a banana tree on a similarly deserted island. Of course, she craves a few of these fine fruits. And she wonders aloud how many crocodiles there might be in the Sillabobble Sea. One crusty croc emerges to imply slyly that there are so many crocs that she could easily walk on their backs to the banana island, and invites her to count them. She counts them: "... one crocodile with a great big smile, / Two crocs resting on rocks, / Three crocs rocking in a box, / Four crocs building with blocks," and so on, until she counts "Ten crocs dressed like Goldilocks." Impatiently, the rascally reptiles ask her how many of them there are, she stalls, she counts them again, and lo and behold! in all the splashing and cavorting, the monkey (with the help of the fox and the snail) gets her bananas! This is one of the most delightful picture books around! (Ages 4 to 8)

From Publishers Weekly
How Monkey gets from his small island to a faraway island where a banana tree grows may be a familiar dilemma but, as PW wrote in a starred review, "Author and artist, working with traditional materials, arrive at an altogether fresh presentation." Ages 3-7.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal
PreSchool-Grade 1. "On an island in the middle of the Sillabobble Sea lived a clever little monkey in a sour lemon tree." The monkey eats lemons every way possible, but yearns to reach a distant island on which sweet bananas grow. Between the two islands is the sea?and interspersed in the crests of the waves are the yellow eyeballs of many, many crocodiles. When the monkey wonders aloud whether there are more crocodiles in the sea or monkeys on the shore, the crocs line up to be counted, providing access to the tasty fruit. Based on a Pan-Asian folktale, Sierra's rhyming verse is perfectly complemented by Hillenbrand's cleverly detailed illustrations executed in oil, oil pastel, watercolor, and gouache on vellum. The full-page spreads carry well for group sharing, while the rhyming verse incorporates rhythm changes in the most delectable manner, creating a book that is meant to be read aloud. The youngest listeners will be able to join in on the counting while older ones will appreciate the illustrator's visual jokes. While Paul Galdone's Monkey and the Crocodile (Clarion, 1979) remains a beloved standard, Hillenbrand's vivid colors and Sierra's rich, descriptive text ensure that readers and listeners alike will delight in Counting Crocodiles.?Lisa Falk, Palos Verdes Library, CA
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

A cut above the rest - clever story, great illustrations!
We have 2 boys, and we own over 200 children's books. This book is one of the 3 best if not THE best book on our shelves. The words, the cadence, the story, and the illustrations are very clever. We like this book so much we often give it to our friends' children as a birthday gift.

Interesting Things Happen in the Sillabobble Sea!
As a mother of a 3 year old daughter and an early childhood educator, this is probably my most favorite book available.

The story revolves around a monkey who spies a banana tree on an island across the way and tricks the crocodiles into making a bridge for him to go over and retrieve some bananas. Each page is very colorfully illustrated and is told in a very catchy poetic form. Through the story you count crocodiles from one to ten and back again. The book is short but puts a smile on your face all the way through.

This story is excellent for teaching values, sequence in stories and in counting, and is a great introduction to crocodiles. A huge fan of The Crocodile Hunter, my daughter finds this story entertaining, and is one of the only stories she asks me to read over and over. It's nice because this is one of the only stories I like reading over and over!

Excellent book for toddlers!
My two year-old is endlessly fascinated by this book, it's story and it's illustrations! She can't get enough of the fanciful crocodiles with their "mohawks", or "chicken pox", and delights in the wonderful rhythm that Sierra uses to write her tale. It doesn't matter that the book doesn't tell us how many crocs there are...you can have fun counting them all together!