illustrated by Rob Hodgson
One dog, two dogs, three dogs, four.
Five cats, six cats . . . how many more?
Count up to 20 playful pooches in this paw-some picture book full of flaps to lift and pop-up surprises!
“Bright and beautiful, ‘One Cat, Two Cats’ is quite simply brilliant! Bursting with gentle humour, children will love the simple rhyming text and the feline antics on every page.”
THROUGH THE BOOKSHELF
My first novelty book with illustrator Rob Hodgson, One Cat, Two Cats, proved so popular with foreign co-publishers that, a year before that book was published, Nosy Crow asked me to write and paper-engineer One Dog, Two Dogs as a companion book.
The first thing I did to get some inspiration for the book was rewatch OK Go’s extraordinary, single-take White Knuckles video shown below. If you enjoy it, you might also like this behind the scenes video which shows the frantic activity by dog handlers and film crew taking place just out of shot.
The rhyming scheme for One Cat, Two Cats is similar to that used in the traditional counting rhyme One Potato, Two Potato. For the first dummy (prototype) of this book, I used a different rhyming scheme, with more beats in each line, so that I could rhyme with different numbers. However Nosy Crow decided they wanted this book to use the same rhyming scheme as the first book, so I reworked the book accordingly. You can get an idea of how the first version worked from the clip below. If you’ve watched the OK Go video, you’ll know where I got the idea for the shelving unit that dogs number 3, 4 and 5 are sitting in.
A clip from the video demo for the first prototype version of the book.
As with the first book, all of the dogs featured in the dummy are the same size and breed and are only there to indicate where Rob needed to draw the varied range of dogs in his artwork. I used Labradors for these placeholder dogs as they are relatively easy to draw and edit in the CAD software I design my pop-up books with, but it’s also one of the breeds I’m most fond of. So I was pleased to see that Rob included a Labrador, as dog number 16, in his final art.
Rob has done a great job on the illustrations, creating a characterful cast of colourful canines. It’s the simplest spread in the book in terms of paper-engineering, with just one small flap and no pop-up element, but one of my favourite spreads in the finished book is the thirteen-fourteen spread with all the dogs sticking their heads out of the vehicle windows. Dog number 14 is behind the car door flap in the bottom right corner.
“A fun and funny way to help children learn to count! Our judges loved this bold, interactive, lift-the-flap, pop-up counting book, that takes away the often repetitive nature of familiarising your kids with numbers. The panel could see that the bright, graphic illustrations showing numerous cats of personality would really entertain kids and that the lifting of flaps to find the cats would help make counting a fun mission.”
JOINT GOLD WINNER – BEST PRE-SCHOOLER BOOK 3-5 YEARS
JUNIOR DESIGN AWARDS 2025
Dispatch & Delivery
Books will be sent by Evri and should take 2–4 working days to arrive after dispatch. I’m generally able to dispatch orders within two working days of receiving them, but if I’m away from home, books will not be signed and dispatched until my return. If you place an order while I’m away for more than a week, you should receive an email telling you when the order will be dispatched and giving you the option to cancel and receive a full refund.