Colors Everywhere: Counting

A lively, rhyming invitation asks readers to count along on their fingers as this counting books progresses from one to 10: “Purple grapes, a black cup./ Please hold your fingers up./ Pink beads, an orange pen,/ look with us and count to ten.” Right-hand pages are crammed with cheery cartoon characters and objects in a single color: “A pair of glasses, a snake, and a pear. They are all green,” writes Versteeg. “What else do you see? Which ones are vegetables?” For each color, readers are asked to identify a certain number of items (“Can you find 2 lemons?”), while two cartoon hands emphasize the counting-on-fingers tactic. The abundance of objects (including many not referenced in the text) offers multiple opportunities for reinforcing knowledge of not only numbers but also animals, foodstuffs, household objects, fantasy creatures, and more. Available simultaneously: Animals Everywhere: Opposites. Ages 2–5. (June)