Anno's Magic Seeds

Anno (Anno's Mysterious Multiplying Jug; Anno's Hat Tricks) offers another worthy addition to his collection of playful stories with mathematical themes. A brief prelude tells of a wizard who gives happy-go-lucky Jack two golden seeds and directs him to eat one and bury the other: ""I promise you it will grow and give you 2 more magic seeds in the fall."" Jack does as he is told, and the cycle repeats for a number of years, until Jack decides one fall to bury both seeds. As Jack buries more and more seeds each consecutive year, readers are challenged with a series of questions (""How many seeds grew that year?""; ""How many seeds did they bury?""). The mathematical gymnastics become even more rigorous as Jack marries, has a child, begins to store some seeds and sell others... until a hurricane wipes out the crops and Jack must begin all over again. Kids on the older end of the targeted age span will have fun with this, and although the arithmetic is well beyond those on the younger end, they'll enjoy Anno's lilting, linear narrative-as well as his soft, appealingly primitive watercolors. Ages 3-7. (Feb.)