COUNTING THROUGH THE DAY

A pink-cheeked, white tyke with a bob haircut counts through the day, from rising to bedtime.

Clothing, toys, and activities are androgynous, so readers of either gender can identify with the child. The rhyming verses emphasize the quotidian markers of a youngster’s day: one teddy bear, an older sibling’s two feet leading the child to breakfast, five broody hens, nine butterflies. In a departure from most counting books, this one counts to 12, skips to 20, then to “hundreds of books piled up on the floor,” thousands of raindrops, millions of stars, and back to one moon, one kiss, and bedtime. White backgrounds keep the focus on the counting and on the collage artwork, which combines a scribbly style with watercolors and found textures, the child’s starry cape and mother’s and grandmother’s cabled sweaters especially standing out. The items are easy to identify, though they are not uniform, especially the chickens and the butterflies, and prominent numerals begin each page. A pet dog and cat appear on every spread, and at the end, the older sibling and mother tuck the child in. All the people are white.

A gentle counting book that adds some higher numbers to children’s repertoires.