One Boy - Hardcover

*Starred Review* Seeger’s First the Egg (2007) was named both a Caldecott Honor Book and Theodore Seuss Geisel Honor Book. Here, she brings her considerable ingenuity to another clever picture book that works on many levels. On its surface, it is a one-to-ten counting book, illustrated with bright, simple pictures in saturated colors and heavy black outlines. Precise die cuts in every other page add another level of sophistication. On a two-page spread, text on the left identifies what’s to be counted—“THREE APES,” for example— while a die cut in the right-hand page exposes a picture of the subject through the hole. Turn the page, and the die cut frames a piece of the text from the previous spread, incorporating it into a new phrase that spells out a new situation—“BIG ESCAPE”—that is illustrated on the opposite page. And if that weren’t enough, the final spread links the entire book together with a string of consecutive images that is delightfully surprising. More than just a picture book to be enjoyed by countless counting toddlers, this offers deft wordplay to engage beginning readers, and enough provocative substance to entertain older children as well. A delight for a wide audience. Preschool-Grade 3. --Thom Barthelmess