TEN WHAT?

A kicky counting book-cum-mystery, with mod watercolor cartoons showing One Urgent Message (it says "GET TEN," and is handed by a tiger in a manhole to someone beaked and trench-coated), Two Secret Agents. . . who search through Five Garbage Cans, Seven Houses, etc . . . . and at last, Ten Lollipops which are delivered to ten tiger paws reaching from the manhole. On each page the featured number is echoed in each set of items; for example, when "Six Elephants" are "called in to assist" in the mysterious search, the scene is decorated with six flowers, six teepees, six mice dressed as Indians, etc. You can't beat Hoban as Hoban, but Raskin is better at this sort of caper. There's no rhyme or reason to the incongruous combination of objects which are scattered about in a style that we'd just as soon leave to TV animation. But—who knows?—it might lure tube addicts who could use the arithmetic lesson.