I WONDER WHO?

Smiling animals peek out or pop up from behind flaps to answer variations on the titular question in this cheery offering.

Stacked three per spread, each query—“I wonder who has snappy teeth?” “I wonder who eats flies?”—is paired to a flap opposite that provides a visual hint through a small slot or hole. The flap then lifts to reveal a respondent: “It’s me, crocodile!” “It’s me, chameleon!” Touliatou renders the high-spirited menagerie with bright hues and exuberantly spattered brushwork in her cartoon illustrations. The paper engineering is likewise spotty—but not in a good way. Aside from a snail who seems to have been accidently missed when moving parts were being added, the animals are all kitted out with clumsy, amateurish special effects, from a tree branch for the owl that fits through a slot but doesn’t move at all when the flap is lifted to tabs that are glued outside rather than inside the crocodile’s lift-up nose.

The illustrations shine more brightly than the paper design—or, for that matter, the grammar.