Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

``Flashy fish'' in Ehlert's typically electric hues swim through this imaginative counting book. Ages 2-6. (Aug.)

Horn Book

In a rhyming text, a child imagines what she would see if she were a fish. On a deep blue background, electrically colored fish from one to ten in number - with die cut eyes - swim through the book. One dark green fish continually reappears, commenting on each scene and encouraging children to add him to the fish on the page and therefore predict the next number. A dazzling package.

School Library Journal (Tue Feb 28 00:00:00 CST 2023)

PreS-Gr 1-- Stylized fish shapes in flat, razzle-dazzle colors against a dark blue background float across the pages from one to ten, accompanied by one little dark fish who keeps the count going. Cutout circles at the eyes reveal colors on succeeding pages. The slight text, occasionally in rhyme, introduces adjectives through the count, and tries to set a context of wish-fulfillment. It's a slick production, attempting several concepts at once--numbers, shapes, colors, imagining, addition to a value of one--but it doesn't quite hang together, and its result is a little breathless. MacDonald and Oakes' Numblers (Dial, 1988) also uses strong color and stark form to present visually the concepts of increasing quantity and transformations, but in a more thoughtful and well-integrated way, with movement inherent in the design. Another little dark fish, Lionni's Swimmy (Pantheon, 1963), has a more meaningful underwater exploration, incorporating the idea of changing appearances into the story. --Karen Litton, London Public Libraries, Ontario, Canada