ONE WHOLE HIPPOPOTAMUS

Higgins returns with another eye-grabbing showcase of early-learning concepts.

It all starts with the basics: “One is one / and two is two / these circles are all blue,” along with an image of blue orbs, all the same size. Higgins proceeds to make visual mischief. “Change their size / but keep the color / same in some ways / not in others” finds three blue circles of different sizes hovering on a two-page spread like a planetary system. Soon the author/illustrator introduces four triangles of various colors—“same or different? / How about now?”—before mixing several other variously colored triangles with a few different colored circles: “Same or different? / tell me how.” Higgins moves on to more complex shapes (roller skates, amoebalike abstractions) and invites readers to participate in some visual puzzle-solving: “Which pieces make this ice cream cone? / What goes on this xylophone?” On it goes, the rhymes and near rhymes snappy and the images becoming more intricate as Higgins gently introduces concepts such as addition, subtraction, and fractions; he also encourages little ones to identify outliers, asking, “What doesn’t match the batch?” while presenting an illustration of three winged creatures and one cat. Higgins’ digitally tweaked cut-paper art, all of it with pleasingly mottled or otherwise textured surfaces and set against flat white space, conjures stripped-down Eric Carle and should get preverbal toddlers thinking and older ones chattering.

Irresistible brain food for littles.