100 Animals on Parade!

With 100 bears, 100 pigs, 100 carpenter beetles, 100 rabbits and 100 birds, there’s never been a parade quite like this one! Exuberant animals wind their way up, down and all around the pages of this counting picture book, carrying odd things, wearing strange hats or making goofy comments. Children will love the busy illustrations by Masayuki Sebe, which use lots of clean white space and brightly colored animals to keep the focus on the lively action. The text offers encouragement (“More and more bears! Count them: 32, 33, 34, 35 ….”), as well as suggestions for searches to involve children more deeply in the artwork (“Where is the bear so strong he can carry a piano?”). Also vying for readers’ attention are a variety of callouts and side stories scattered across the pages, such as counting markers to help children stay on track, other tiny details to try and spot, and hilarious small dramas between animals in the parade. The story ends at the Animal Festival, where a chaotic sea of all the parading animals fills the pages with joyful mayhem. For the truly energetic, there are two bonus search activities at the end. This is a book that offers great fun along with challenging opportunities for counting practice. With so many searches spread throughout the pages, it also helps promote visual literacy in pre-readers and early readers. It’s a natural fit for the 100th-day-of-school celebrations in the early primary grades.