Sumo Counting

Sumo Counting is an adorable bilingual Japanese/English illustrated book for babies and children by Sanae Ishida. Due out 7th Sept 2021 from Sasquatch imprint Little Bigfoot, it's 22 pages and will be available in boardbook format.

This is such a fun book with engaging colourful and fun illustrations full of movement and learning opportunities. Each of the illustrations covers a full page with simple inset text describing the pictures simply with numbers shown in both Arabic numerals, Japanese hiragana / IPA, and a short 2 line text in English. It's written as a counting book: "One little sumo full of yokozuna dreams", "Two little sumo wrestlers bouting in a dohyo ring", etc and each subsequent picture is full of more and more little sumo wrestlers doing sumo things (including cleaning up their sumo heya - training and living area). The illustrations are full of subtle little extras which will provide lots of opportunity for hunt and find during reading time. 

I really liked that this little book (and the other one in the series) is full of Japanese vocabulary which is easy to understand. All the Japanese words included in the text are also defined with their IPA/hiragana in the back of the book. This would make a wonderful all-ages book for babies up to adults who want to learn a few rudimentary words and numbers as well as simple cultural things from Japan. 

Additionally, and it has no real bearing on the book review, but the author/artist, Sanae Ishida's own website and blog are wonderfully creative and full of beautifully designed and constructed sewn clothing, watercolors, printables, papercrafts, and insight. She's a multi-talented creative soul and I am in awe of her sheer productivity. 

Five stars.

Disclosure: I received an ARC at no cost from the author/publisher for review purposes.