The Completed Hickory Dickory Dock

This extended version of the familiar nursery rhyme successfully combines simple counting concepts, the numbers one through 12 and a gentle introduction to telling time. Laced with phonetic harmonies, the additional verses have a nonsensical, bouncing quality that offer a fun-filled challenge for little ones to master. ``Honeybee, bunny bee, boo. / The mouse ran into a shoe. / The clock struck three, / He scratched a flea. / Honeybee, bunny bee, boo.'' The endearingly chubby mouse and his family are humorously portrayed in Christelow's colorful, frantic cartoons. The story's vitality is suitably slowed toward the book's end, as the exhausted mouse drifts off to sleep: ``The clock struck twelve, / Now dream some yourselves.'' Ages 4-7. (Sept.)