Clever Hans: The True Story of the Counting, Adding, and Time-Telling Horse

Clever Hans: The True Story of the Counting, Adding, and Time-Telling Horse by Kerri Kokias, illustrated by Mike Lowery. Grades 2-5. 32 pages. Putnam, 2020. Review copy provided by my local library. 

Clever Hans was a horse who could do math problems, tell time, read, spell, and more... or could he? Even after seeing the horse answering questions, some people thought it was somehow a hoax, but it took a scientist and a study to figure out how. It turns out that Clever Hans really WAS clever, but not in the way that most people thought. 

I loved, loved, loved this nonfiction picture book, which is reminiscent of one of my favorite picture book authors, Meghan McCarthy. It's an interesting and little known topic - I remember learning about Clever Hans in my college psychology classes, but chances are he'll be new to kids. The narrative is written with a good dose of humor in a conversational tone. The cartoony illustrations add to the humor and appeal of this book. I appreciated the author's note that explained why Clever Hans is important to modern research and I loved that the book emphasizes the ways that Hans really was clever, even if not in exactly the ways that people originally thought. This is a great book about the scientific process and a fun animal story in one. A winner.