Counting creatures by Julia Donaldson, illustrated by Sharon King-Chai

This is technically a picture book, but it's so... fragile that it's not something I'd add to a library, hence why I'm posting it at this weird time, as I clean out my stash of books for review.

Julia Donaldson, a popular picture book creator from the UK, offers a simple, rhyming text that counts up the babies of a variety of creatures. It follows a simple formula, "This (creature) has... x babies" then a brief couplet describing their actions, followed by "Who has more babies than that?" The text is not particularly memorable and is often difficult to read, on dark backgrounds. As a nonfiction fan, I also have to point out that, like all these counting books, they are generally not even remotely accurate as to the number of babies these animals have. However, the real point here isn't the text, but the art.

Sharon King-Chai's art and paper engineering is exquisite. Lush, vibrant colors crowd the pages while delicately cut lift the flaps expand the book. The cardboard cover itself has die cut shapes, revealing a clutch of owlets and some flashes of color later in the book. There are also foil overleaves scattered throughout to add some shine. The bat's wing lifts to reveal her baby and a delicately paper cut stand of trees flips open at the endpages to show a peaceful meadow scene. A pile of blazing orange, yellow, and pink leaves lifts in sequence to reveal a huddle of mouse babies, and there are peepholes through trees, glimpses behind bushes, and more. At the end of the book, readers discover even more to find, when they learn that the spider's babies are scattered throughout the book.

This is a beautiful book, but there is simply no way it's going to last in any library collection. While some of the delicate flaps can be reinforced at their hinge, there's no way to reinforce the die-cut pages and many of them have multiple peep-holes. The binding itself feels light and flimsy, a thin scrape of paper over cardboard with a fragile spine.

Verdict: This is lovely, but because the text can be difficult to decipher and the flaps fragile, it's unlikely to last even if used only in a professional storytime collection. Save this one for a special gift for a very careful little person - or for the collection of an adult who appreciates beautiful picture books.

ISBN: 9780593324530; Published November 2020 by Dial/Penguin; Review copy provided by publisher; Donated to the library as a prize book