Absolutely One Thing: Featuring Charlie and Lola by Lauren Child (review)

A trip to the store means getting to pick out one thing each for Charlie and his little sister, Lola—but first they have to get there. This means Charlie’s getting ready (“It takes me THREE minutes to brush my teeth, ONE minute to remember that I have forgotten to eat breakfast . . . and EIGHT minutes to find Lola’s left shoe”) and addressing the myriad of distractions and questions presented by Lola along the way. These interactions involve lots of counting (“‘Look at all those singing birds—there are one, two, five, seven, twenty, sixteen, eleventeen, nine birds singing.’ And I say, ‘No, Lola, there are 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.’ ‘That’s what I said,’ she says”) and playful discussions of number sense concepts. Once at the store, Lola tries to negotiate the number of things she’s allowed to buy (“And Lola says, ‘Three things.’ And Mom says, ‘ONE thing.’ And Lola says, ‘Two things.’ And Mom says, ‘How about NO things?’”), but she (eventually) settles on a pack of stickers, while Charlie chooses a package of decorative pins. Charlie’s droll narration alternates between exasperation and indulgence, and kids with younger siblings will find it particularly entertaining. The animated text provides plenty of opportunities to practice counting and calculating simple operations, while corresponding numeric labels and number sentences make explicit the tallying and calculations. Child’s cozy, collage-style art is casual yet controlled, and she wisely leaves plenty of uncluttered space to allow the text and numbers equal billing with the art; pops of red and yellow enliven the grays, browns, and greens of the interiors and outdoor scenes. Use this as a springboard into a math lesson or simply share and enjoy with Charlie and Lola fans.