Preschoolers who are learning to count will find little help in this ill-conceived story about 10 children on an Easter egg hunt for their own uniquely decorated eggs. The format uses a large illustration and two rhyming lines of text on each left-hand page, with a panel on the right-hand page stating the total number of eggs found so far and showing those differently colored eggs in a larger, uniform size. The primary illustration presents several children from the cast of 10, all searching for their own special eggs, with one child finding an egg on each spread. The concept is confusing, because the stated number of eggs usually does not correspond with the number of eggs shown in the hunt scene. For example, on the page for 10 eggs, only six eggs are shown in the larger illustration. Sometimes one of the eggs in the illustration is from the following page’s find, so that particular color of egg is not included in the tally of eggs found so far, even though the egg is right there in the illustration. Children who are used to practicing totaling up a number of items in counting books will wonder what is going on here, and in fact, it’s confusing for adult readers who are trying to help them. Count this one out. (Picture book. 2-5)
