Ten Tiny Tadpoles by Debbie Tarbett

Ten Tiny Tadpoles is a rhyming counting book which also introduces babies and younger children to the concept of tadpoles turning into frogs. We read the book after a walk to the pond to look for frogspawn, it’s a great book to read in the spring.

The Story: Ten Tiny Tadpoles on the first page decrease one by one as they join other friends in the stream leaving one lonely tadpole at the end. The final pop up spread shows ten baby frogs.

Ten Tiny Tadpoles is a good size for little hands and has sturdy pages (although the pages are not as thick as a board book). With it’s wonderful froggy pop up on the final spread it’s a great book for babies – however, due to enthusiastic toddler reading some of our frogs are a little torn! The ten plastic tadpoles peer through little holes and are lovely and smooth for little fingers to feel. They disappear one by one which gives lots of opportunities for counting backwards and practising subtraction, I also used them with my daughter to introduce and consolidate colour recognition. Ten Tiny Tadpoles is also a great stimulus for talking about tadpoles turning into frogs and introduces other pond inhabitants, e.g dragonflies, newts and water snails. 

The simple rhyming text is very familiar to us after repetitive reading! Each double page spread is beautifully illustrated with big, colourful characters who all have friendly smiles and provide more opportunities for counting and colour recognition.

This is a great first book for young children, especially relevant for this time of year.

Age Range: 1 +

Author / Illustrator: Debbie Tarbett

Ten wriggly wiggly caterpillars was also another of my daughter’s favourites when she was younger. Can you guess what was on the final double spread in this story?