THE NUMBERS DANCE

In an elegantly designed cousin to Bill Martin’s Chicka Chicka 1,2,3 (2004), illustrated by Lois Ehlert, the numbers one to ten collide while trying to dance in different styles, creating chaos on the floor. Ziborova illustrates the melee—“1 gets knocked. / 2 gets socked. / 3 gets blocked. / With 4 who’s rocked. / Even 5 and 6 feel shock, / Finding themselves in a strange head-lock”—with digitally reworked collages featuring big digits in different colors and typefaces tumbling across abstract fields of patterned fabric, printed papers and white space. The visuals work with the text’s changing cadences to capture the wild confusion, if not a sense of what the dances actually look like, and harmony, of a sort, is restored at the end as all ten find ways to “Dance their OWN styles—like they want to—again.” Still, this would work better with the letters actually in motion. Attention filmmakers! (Picture book. 6-8)