DAVID CARTER'S 100

Children will echo a certain Sesame Street character’s “I love to count!” after lifting 100 numbered flaps to see as many different cartoon figures.

Changing settings from spread to spread, Carter begins with an undersea scene followed by gatherings of cars and trucks, garden veggies, dinosaurs, desserts and so on. Each page features five shaped, stacked flaps of decreasing size and varying orientation, with the largest always on top—and each flap features a simply drawn, brightly colored item or animal with an identifying label and a number. A city bus (labeled number 11) lifts to reveal a fire truck (12), which conceals an ambulance (13), which covers a “doggy rickshaw” (14), under which a “city worker” (15) emerges from a manhole (here, a doghole). Lifting the fifth and smallest flap in every stack reveals a congratulatory message: “Now you’ve counted to [number]!” Rather than concluding with a flourish, the final “Now you’ve counted to 100!” looks like its predecessors and seems anticlimactic. Still, even very young children with rudimentary counting skills will be drawn on by the stream of visual surprises and will feel a proper sense of accomplishment when they reach the end.

A flap lifter’s delight and a sure promoter of early numeracy. Count on repeat visits.