You Can Count On Me! Everyone Counts! by Judy Sierra

It started out small, with no creatures at all,
Just a musty, old, dusty tumbledown mall.
Then along came Takoda the tiger cub, who
Saw the tumbledown mall and imagined a zoo.

But the animals soon see that to build a zoo... there's a LOT to do!

... to build a new zoo takes a mighty big crew.

Two tough rhinos bulldoze the trash from the mall, and three lemurs lean in with paint rollers to provide orange walls.

Ten bugs offer their skills to the zoo, which the big animals eschew:

"You bugs are too small.
"You don't count at all."

Four oryx carve square windows, and five bears build their own lairs. Six giraffes contribute tall towers. seven bats display banners, while eight elephants engineer the playground... and some optimistic soul gives nine crocodiles the contract for the water slide. But all is peaceful collaboration until some bullies try to take it all over for themselves, and then it's -- pesty bugs to the rescue.... All for one and one for all!

The companion book to their top-seller, Wild About Books, author Judy Sierra and artist Marc Brown (of Arthur fame) provide a rollicking, alliterative lilt with Sierra's clever couplets and plenty of detail in Marc Brown's comic characters to keep kids looking at the busy pastel illustrations, as they go up to ten and down again in their latest collaboration, Everyone Counts (Alfred A. Knopf, 2019). The title itself is a catchy pun which adds fun to this new title by two picture book pros. And although this inviting counting book is aimed particularly at preschool youngsters, older kids will want to sneak a peek at the hilarious animal riddles--old groaners and some new zingers--on the endpapers. Says Kirkus Reviews, "This rhythmic, imaginative romp practically reads itself aloud."