Ten Little Fingers

In my twisted mind, the first thing I see is:  the publishing team took a calculated risk on excluding all kids without exactly ten fingers.  "Oh, you have six fingers on your left hand Johnny?  Well, we're working on a limited-release sequel due to come out in the summer.  Until then, could you just change the number in the book to eleven, mmkay?!" 

THREE PROS

*Nice size and shape to the book for holding in an adult hand while reading it to a child under the age of one   

*Annie Kubler's illustrations are not my fave, but they seem appropriate for a book in this market niche
*Was thinking while I read it that it would make a better song than a book, so I'm not surprised they have the music notation on the back cover

THREE CONS 

*As stupid as my introductory point is, it isn't completely without merit -- there has to be some way to make books like these (as in a book that is complete fluff anyway) all-inclusive rather than forcing people to opt out of a title because their child does not meet the most common number of digits 
*Can you think of an ending to a song/book that is less inspiring than "and hold them just so" 

*Botched the opening two facing pages by having the text on each too close to the spine -- simple layout error, but it was the first thing I saw

ONE DAD'S OPINION
Note to self: it turns out that the Oppenheim Toy Portfolio Best Book Award is not a good predictor of what the best books will be.  Looks like someone's trying to give the Caldecott a run for its money in the bad award-giving category.  Ten Little Fingers is a blah book that reminds me what it's like to read to a baby again (I've been reviewing toddler books for the last two years now).  It takes a special brand of talent to make the cut in this age range.  And the folks at Child's Play International did not find it here.  A definite Donate, even if you completely dismiss my missing/extra fingers tangent... 

Buy / Borrow / DONATE / Destroy