Counting Kittens (32 pp.; $13.95; PLB $15.95; Apr. 1997; 0-382- 39650-2; PLB 0-382-39649-9): Cute kittens of the greeting-card variety overrun the pages of an awkwardly written counting book. A child whose cat has ten kittens counts them as they romp around the house, in gently comic scenes of the felines playing in predictable and mischievous ways. The child gives all but one away and is last seen asleep with kitten number ten. The structure of the text resembles a song lyric in its repetitions of a stanza (``I'm counting kittens in the kitchen,/Kittens in the hall./I'm counting kittens in the bathroom./I'm counting kittens climbing up walls''), but it's not very melodic. The end words often only approximate rhymes, and the meter--frequently distorted--does not facilitate reading aloud. (Picture book. 4-7)
