Animals Hide and Sneak

“On of these things is almost like the others,” begins this stylish spot-the-different board book, first in a series spun off of Contraire’s 2016 picture book, Undercover. The spreads—printed in purple, yellow, and the brown that shows up where they overlap—feature multiple animals, one of which is an interloper. As in Undercover, there’s sly humor at work in many scenes: seven snakes are paired with a single belt (snakeskin, perhaps?), there’s a wolf among the sheep, and three long-necked birds are joined by a (mechanical) crane. Children may not have trouble spotting the out-of-place animal or object, but the book’s real delights come from contemplating the visual or thematic reasons why it’s there. Ages 1–3. (May)