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Summary
Summary
Two, four, six. Look at all the bricks!
Grab a hard hat and all your tools, and get ready for a construction adventure in counting! This clever, rhyming picture book leads readers through a day in the life of a construction crew building with bricks. A brick may seem like just a simple block, but in groupings of ten, twenty, and more, it can create many impressive structures, from hotels to schools to skyscrapers. Billions of Bricks from Kurt Cyrus is a terrific introduction to counting in quantities for children.
A Christy Ottaviano Book
Author Notes
Kurt Cyrus is the creator of many books for young readers, including The Voyage of Turtle Rex , Tadpole Rex , and Big Rig Bugs . He is also the illustrator of 20 Big Trucks by Mark Lee and M.T. Anderson's Pals in Peril series. He currently lives in Oregon with his partner and their dog.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Cyrus elevates the humble brick in more ways than one in an effervescent picture book set at a busy construction site, where hard hat-wearing men, women, and children build a palatial structure. First, though, the bricks need to be made: "Dig the clay./ Squish it thick./ Take a mold and make a brick./ Dump it out./ Let it dry./ Stoke the oven way up high," writes Cyrus. There's an impressive dimensionality to the structures on display and beauty in the subtle variations in the bricks' rosy hues. Readers aren't explicitly asked to do any counting, but it's almost impossible to resist diving into the architecturally theatrical images to tally the arches, columns, and porticos that take shape. Cyrus's rollicking rhymes ("Two, four, six./ A million, billion bricks./ Columns, walls, shopping malls,/ halls of politics") and elegant artwork should delight playroom block stackers and someday builders and architects alike. Ages 4-7. (Oct.) © Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Two, four, six. / Look at all the bricks! An entire community rallies to make, stack, transport, and lay bricks in a variety of structures in this cheery counting book. The process begins small but then quickly grows as more and more bricks are needed to build Grand hotels. / Wishing wells. / Railroad yards. / Boulevards. / Fountains! Pools! / Public schools! Cyrus arranges a lively mix of four-line verses and limericks that serves a dual purpose, applying practical application to the usefulness of bricks while cleverly finding a way to engage young readers in counting. Bold text with varying font sizes adorns scenes of gradually escalating construction, staffed with workers young and old, male and female, with a wide variety of skin tones, and all wearing the same apparel but keeping to different tasks. Readers will have fun shouting out repetitive lines and locating specific workers from page to page. The bouncy rhythm and energetic action make this a fantastic pick for a group story time.--Lock, Anita Copyright 2016 Booklist
School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 2-Builders. Counters. Gather round to share this book where bricks abound. As workers make bricks, mix mortar, and build increasingly complex structures, Cyrus's pulsing rhythm and infectious rhyme drive their efforts forward. Six bricks on the first pages grow to piles of tens, patterns of four, then hundreds forming arches and stairs. Against the earth-tone palette of the bricks themselves, splotches of color from hard hats and overalls identify the laborers. Among the workers who reappear in many scenes are the original three-a boy, a man, and a woman-who can be spotted on each spread. Variations in type size automatically generate emphasis in read-aloud renditions, which seem essential. Individual readers can peruse the complex illustrations of building sites for increased enjoyment. The impeccable design is apparent even on the title pages, where bricks form words and the youngest worker walks past a window. VERDICT This impressive melding of illustrations and text that celebrates hard work and building deserves a place in general collections and on read-aloud shelves.-Kathy Piehl, Minnesota State University Library, Mankato © Copyright 2016. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
This describes itself as a counting book about building, but it is so much more. Vying for readers attention are the snappy rhymes that both count and instruct and the artwork, the details so vivid and the bricks so real that some of the stacks might just fall with the touch of a counting finger. With each turn of the page, what appear to be the members of a communityyoung and old, male and female, black and white and brownadd more bricks to create a masterpiece. Starting with two, four, six. / Look at all the bricks! / Red and rough, hard and tough. / Two, four, six, the piles of bricks get larger and larger as readers are treated to a view of how bricks are made. Some mix the mortar, some lay the bricks, and one white boy, having been given one brick by what could be his grandmother, can be seen on every page, carrying or offering his brick to workers. Past the halfway mark, Cyrus continues to use numbers in his rhymes, but readers will be unable to match them with bricks to count. No matter. This is an amazing feat of architecture and artistry that kids will pore over long after the last brick has been laid. After sharing this, readers will have a new appreciation for bricks and will want to count all the ways theyre used in their own communities. (Counting/picture book. 4-7) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
