Count Your Way Through India (Count Your Way)

Rating:
Summary: A much needed book, but one with three major flaws.
Review: "Count Your Way through. . ." is a wonderful series, exposing children to the phoenetic sounds and cultures of other lands. "Count Your Way through India" is especially valuable since Hindi uses a different script than do most European languages. I believe there are two major errors in this book, and one omission. The introduction tells readers that both Hindi and Sanskrit use the same alphabet, or script, but does not give its name: the "Deva Nagri" script. This is, of course, merely a point of information, but it seems it would be a valuable piece of knowledge. The first error I would like to note is perhaps not very serious: numerals do not have a line drawn over their tops as do alphabet letters. Although the author (illustrator?) is correct in writing out the WORD for each number with a line drawn over the letters, this is not how numerals are written. The second error is much more serious: The number 8 is written phonetically in English incorrectly. It is pronounced "ot" as in "pot" or "hot." There is no "r" sound in the pronunciation of the number. The Hindi word for "ot" is correctly spelled in the Deva Nagri script, but the transliteration is incorrect. I can only assume someone from Boston did the transliteration!! Overall, though, this is a wonderful introduction to the world's cultures, and I appreciate very much being able to have this book in my school's library.