Ten Gorillas

In a book first published in Sweden, Blomgren highlights several monkeys and apes, from familiar gorillas and chimpanzees to less well-known macaques and guenons. Blomgren counts (mostly) by 10s as she goes, interjecting playfully incongruous comments throughout: “Thirty gibbons... and not a single cell phone between them.” Counting the primates gets increasingly tricky as their numbers build—the 82 guenons are wedged into three hammocks, and 100 orangutans appear as tiny red silhouettes scrambling over the hillside. Unusual visual details fill the pages, from the gaudy sunglasses 10 gorillas wear on the opening spread to the hot-air balloons (one is a strawberry, another a Mexican calavera skull) the animals cram into at the end. Fans of George Rodrigue, Maira Kalman, and Stephen Huneck are perhaps the likeliest audience for this book’s offbeat charms. Ages 4–7. (Sept.)