Gobble Gobble CRASH! A Barnyard Counting Bash

Gobble Gobble CRASH! A Barnyard Counting Bash
Julie Stiegemeyer
illustrated by Valeri Gorbachev

My Rating: 4 out of 5

Genre: Fiction/Picture Book/Counting

Four noisy turkeys are the center of this barnyard tale. Flying in uninvited to Mr. Farmer's barnyard, these turkeys cause a ruckus among the animals who were otherwise resting peacefully; beginning with one lonely mare nibbling on some hay, and ending with ten baby robins yodeling in their nest. With the turkeys waking the up the whole barnyard, eventually, Mr. Farmer is awakened too - and he is ANGRY! Things get heated when he threatens the them with a turkey feast and ambles out of the house to capture the turkeys. When the barnyard animals hear this, they vow to keep the turkeys safe by hiding them. As Mr. Farmer enters the barnyard, everything seems back to normal, starting with ten baby robins sleeping soundly in their nest and ending with the mare snuggled soundly with three fuzzy kittens and two baby cows.

I enjoyed Stiegemeyer's counting book and think it would be a fun read for kindergarten and first grade students to reinforce counting from up and down from one to ten. Gorbachev's watercolor illustrations refelct the calm of the sleeping barnyard as well as the chaos in the barnyard when the four turkeys arrive - and they are simply hilarious. The rhyming scheme also makes it fun to read aloud and students will have fun recalling the animals in the barnyard when counting back from ten. Students and teachers alike will love this book!