Animals with attitude

Cool Cats Counting

by Sherry Shahan; illustrated by Paula Barragan

Each page features different animals, a different number and a different dance. Dance? You bet. It’s salsa time!

Imagine Pablo Picasso stumbling into a Latin discotheque filled with barnyard animals, and you’ll have a feel for this finger-snapping counting book. The animals, in their florid dresses, zoot suits and even hip-hop outfits, look off-kilter and flattened, somewhat like late Cubist renderings, only in a jalapeno-hot palette.

And they tango, rumba and cha-cha their way through syncopated verses up to the number 10 in both English and Spanish:

Eight rats
Spin and snap
Rat-a-tat-tat
HIGH JINKS!
Ocho Ratas

Though the press packet talks obligingly about multicultural blah-blah-blah, it’s okay to buy this for its foot-tapping fun.

Rating: *\*\

Comments

[Susan]

I liked this same team's "Spicy Hot Colors/Colores Picantes," too. It's an intro to colors in Spanish & English, with rhythms along the lines of "Chicka Chicka Boom Boom." Sounds like the counting book is equally fun.

[Anne]

I think they won several awards for "Spicy Hot Colors" and were honored at the Newport Jazz Festival too.