10 Hungry Rabbits: Counting and Color Concepts

Lobel smoothly weaves together a counting and color lesson in this trim book that follows 10 rabbits as they find vegetables for their mother’s soup. The color of each rabbit’s vegetable matches his or her clothing, as well as the corresponding numerals and name of each color. On the way up to 10, the fourth rabbit “picked four red tomatoes,” while the seventh rabbit “spotted seven brown mushrooms.” After Papa Rabbit slices the medley of colorful vegetables, and Mama swirls the soup on the stove, “The Rabbit family sat down to bowls of delicious vegetable soup. Yum! The happy rabbits were hungry no more.” Lobel’s gouache and watercolor portraits, rendered in her familiar folk art style, recall impressionist paintings—each soup component, writ large, takes up most of its page, while the rabbits scour the garden in panels below. Ages 1–up. (Feb.)