100 BEARS

Hunters pursue bears and vice versa in an entertaining scramble up the number chart that misses not a single entry.

Linked by an on-again, off-again plotline, the tally begins with “1 forest” and ends with “100 trees.” In between, it takes 6 bears and 8 hunters from country to city, London to the African savanna, and aboard jets and ships. Along with multiple pauses for partying, they move on to a final reconciliation fueled by, among other goodies, “91 slices of gingerbread.” Done in a process that looks sometimes silk-screened and sometimes like paint and cut-paper collage, French illustrator Bardos’ flat, loudly colored illustrations grow increasingly crammed with silhouetted rushing figures, foods, tourist items, animals, stars and other things to tally up. Impressively, none of these are exact duplicates. To keep it all from turning into dizzying chaos, she often places figures in rows or gathers them into easily countable groups. She also varies the color schemes and compositions and provides welcome visual breaks by representing some entries with just numerals. Metric terminology and other signs of European origin give the book a pleasantly cosmopolitan air.

A terrific visual romp.