BILLIONS OF BRICKS

This describes itself as “a counting book about building,” but it is so much more.

Vying for readers’ attention are the snappy rhymes that both count and instruct and the artwork, the details so vivid and the bricks so real that some of the stacks might just fall with the touch of a counting finger. With each turn of the page, what appear to be the members of a community—young and old, male and female, black and white and brown—add more bricks to create a masterpiece. Starting with “two, four, six. / Look at all the bricks! / Red and rough, hard and tough. / Two, four, six,” the piles of bricks get larger and larger as readers are treated to a view of how bricks are made. Some mix the mortar, some lay the bricks, and one white boy, having been given one brick by what could be his grandmother, can be seen on every page, carrying or offering his brick to workers. Past the halfway mark, Cyrus continues to use numbers in his rhymes, but readers will be unable to match them with bricks to count. No matter. This is an amazing feat of architecture and artistry that kids will pore over long after the last brick has been laid.

After sharing this, readers will have a new appreciation for bricks and will want to count all the ways they’re used in their own communities.