1 2 3 HOW MANY ANIMALS CAN YOU SEE?

The author/illustrator of the ""Peterkin"" books returns in a routine counting book with cuddly, school-attending animals as the centerpiece. Rabbit is the first off to school, depicted against a full-page, pastoral panorama. He is joined by Fox (two), Duck (three), and so on up to ten, including Bear--who counts the class to make sure. The animals are simply drawn, clear in outline rather than detail, cozily anthropomorphized: a muffler for Otter, earmuffs for Squirrel, a wagon for Porcupine. Backgrounds are cleanly outlined blocks of bright, harmonious color, each tree, cornstalk and hill precisely delineated, with few shadings to confuse--or distinguish--the images. While this will have its uses among the youngest, to teach them counting, adding, and animal identification, it is not particularly memorable.