Note: I accessed a digital review copy of this book through Edelweiss. ( )

What kid doesn’t love a book with flaps and cut-outs? Readers aged 3 and up can learn to count in the most delightful way while they learn about the animal kingdom. The book begins with a creature that has just one baby - a bat. Each page ends with, “Who has more babies than that?” It goes on to show offspring of sheep, leopards, wild dogs, etc. and with each answer you also learn what that animals babies are called (like lambs, cubs, kits, and pups). It counts up to ten, then leaps by fives to 30. It ends with a creature that has lots of babies, pictures of which you discover have been hidden on all the previous pages.

Simple rhymes using alliteration and onomatopoeia describe the pictures of animals “nosing and nestling, writhing and wrestling” or “frolicking and frisking.” Kids will laugh at the ducklings “swimming and snacking, and practicing quacking.”

Illustrator Sharon King-Chai uses vibrant colors to show animals with big eyes in their natural habitats.

Evaluation: This excellent book for the very young accomplishes so much while keeping readers captivated: they not only learn about a variety of animals not usually featured in books for toddlers and what to call them. They also incidentally find out where and how these animals live, all while getting exposed to new ways to express what they see and hear. ( )

This interactive book shows readers all kinds of fun facts about animals and their scientific names. Learn to count, find, and explore the different animals with beautiful illustrations and fun elements. I recommend for young children, but it can be enjoyed by all. ( )

This is no ordinary counting book! There are intricate cutouts (including the cover) and various flaps on each page that lift up, down, or out to the side. Jewel-tone illustrations show the different animals and their babies, from one bat baby to LOTS of spiderlings ("Take a good look - they're all over this book. How many babies is that?"). ( )

This is technically a picture book, but it's so... fragile that it's not something I'd add to a library, hence why I'm posting it at this weird time, as I clean out my stash of books for review.
Julia Donaldson, a popular picture book creator from the UK, offers a simple, rhyming text that counts up the babies of a variety of creatures. It follows a simple formula, "This (creature) has... x babies" then a brief couplet describing their actions, followed by "Who has more babies than that?" The text is not particularly memorable and is often difficult to read, on dark backgrounds. As a nonfiction fan, I also have to point out that, like all these counting books, they are generally not even remotely accurate as to the number of babies these animals have. However, the real point here isn't the text, but the art.

Sharon King-Chai's art and paper engineering is exquisite. Lush, vibrant colors crowd the pages while delicately cut lift the flaps expand the book. The cardboard cover itself has die cut shapes, revealing a clutch of owlets and some flashes of color later in the book. There are also foil overleaves scattered throughout to add some shine. The bat's wing lifts to reveal her baby and a delicately paper cut stand of trees flips open at the endpages to show a peaceful meadow scene. A pile of blazing orange, yellow, and pink leaves lifts in sequence to reveal a huddle of mouse babies, and there are peepholes through trees, glimpses behind bushes, and more. At the end of the book, readers discover even more to find, when they learn that the spider's babies are scattered throughout the book.

This is a beautiful book, but there is simply no way it's going to last in any library collection. While some of the delicate flaps can be reinforced at their hinge, there's no way to reinforce the die-cut pages and many of them have multiple peep-holes. The binding itself feels light and flimsy, a thin scrape of paper over cardboard with a fragile spine.

Verdict: This is lovely, but because the text can be difficult to decipher and the flaps fragile, it's unlikely to last even if used only in a professional storytime collection. Save this one for a special gift for a very careful little person - or for the collection of an adult who appreciates beautiful picture books.

ISBN: 9780593324530; Published November 2020 by Dial/Penguin; Review copy provided by publisher; Donated to the library as a prize book