Let's Count Goats! (review)

Who could resist the invitation to count goats? Not the audience for this book, who will gleefully follow the rhyming text as it describes goats in various habitats and situations. These aren't your usual farmyard goats, either; no, these goats hang out at airports and holler on soccer fields, tootle around in cars and toot on trumpets. The result is a book that combines basic counting challenges ("Can we count the pilot goats with goggles on their faces?") with lively situations and occasional concept elements rather than simply proceeding directly from one to ten. Regularization of the fairly random capitalization could have helped make the text even more effective by clarifying the emphases, but it's a rollicking and playful outing that offers a little bit more difficulty than your basic enumerative counting book. The digitally created illustrations evince a manic, kid-appealing cheer as the hyper-expressive goats (which look a little like dogs with horns) with their googly eyes peer out at the audience; thick, even black lines bound the planes of saturated colors, with layering effects conferring a touch of sophistication on the simply cartoonish but highly energetic figures. This will make a spirited step up for those youngsters who've mastered counting along and want to show off their independent skills.