One, Two, Three!

The popular illustrator and greeting-card artist brings oddball humor and plenty of sassy energy to Boynton on Board, a quartet of concept board books. Each volume features a die-cut front cover framing a picture of its ebullient cartoon stars. A zany sensibility gives an extra bounce to the otherwise conventional counting book One, Two, Three! A similar silliness suffuses Dinosaurs , which explores opposites. In Barnyard , farm animals dance a boisterous, breathless, knee-slapping reel called, with great panache, by a fiddle-playing cow: ``Bow to the horse. / Bow to the cow. / Twirl with the pig if you know how.'' The rowdy crew in Monsters bursts in upon a mild-mannered hippo and makes ``the mess that monsters make,'' but returns to make amends. Fresh and buoyant, these books are good, clean fun. Ages 1-4. (Jan.)