My Best English, Vol. 3: Numbers

10-year-old Jason Perez and puppet Guin the Penguin co-anchor this entry in the My Best English series (the other two identically priced volumes are Alphabet and Colors), which inventively combines animation, live action, and music to teach pre-school/kindergarten aged viewers the numbers 1-20. While the educational content is solid, a couple of the sketches with Jason and Guin are problematic: 1) in one counting exercise, when Guin correctly counts the sixth item, Jason responds "uh oh…it's six," as if Guin were wrong, when in fact he is right, and 2) a lesson in sharing falls apart when Guin selfishly grabs all of Jason's candy with no apparent consequences beyond a good-natured chuckle. With so many excellent counting videos on the market , such as Richard Scarry's Best Counting Video Ever (11/89), this one--with its mild confusion during the sketches--is an optional purchase. Aud: K, E, P. (R. Pitman)