Up to Ten and Down Again! How to Two by David Soman

ONE can have fun!

A little boy's red cap flies off his head as he shoots off the end of a clearly slippery sliding board. What a ride!

But in the background, a solitary small girl in big green boots sits alone on one end of the seesaw.

It takes TWO to teeter-totter, so the boy jumps on!

Just then a girl with a jump rope hops into the scene. Can they make it a THREEsome?

The seesaw is forgotten as the two kids each take an end of the rope and the little girl jumps in--just as a boy with a ball walks up.

HOW TO FOUR?

Play FOURsquare, of course, as they toss the ball around the little court painted on the pavement.

But the play group grows to include a boy pushing his toy bulldozer dump truck around in the sand box, and all FIVE get busy building a mountain in the middle for the trucks to move.

And when a sudden shower threatens, all FIVE run for the shelter, where a single girl makes SIX as she joins them in a circle game while they wait out the rain. Soon it stops, and when they spot a boy outside stomping through the puddles, they all race out to splash along with him, where the SEVEN splashers see a girl swinging from a tree branch, and they become a group of EIGHT playing hide-and-seek among the trees. And when a boy with a magnifying glass appears, all NINE get to peer through his glass at the turtles in the pond. And when one spies a boy alone on a bench, they're a team of TEN.

There's always room for ONE more, in author-illustrator David Soman's latest, How To Two (Dial Books, 2019), which, cleverly disguised as a counting book, is also a delightful dissertation on how each new child in free play helps the group morph into different games. And the number fun is not over, as in two double-page spreads, parents and grandparents converge to take each one back home, where the little boy in the red cap and his mom become a cozy TWO at story time.

Soman's artwork, celebrated for his part in the popular Ladybug Girl series, shines here as he creates a diverse, but charmingly individualized group of children doing what they do best--play--devising a series of pick-up games in their small park that goes up to ten and down again. Soman works his illustrative magic as each new prospective playmate appears, foreshadowing just what is going to happen next, making this new easy-to-read picture book the kind kids will come back to over and over again, long after they've mastered counting. "No two ways about it--this one is a delight." raves Kirkus Reviews.

Makin' Friends: A New Friend for Marmalade by Alison Reynolds

ELLY, MADDY, AND MARMALADE WERE BEST FRIENDS.

ONE MORNING THEY DECIDED TO BUILD A PLAYHOUSE.

TOBY, THE BOY FROM ACROSS THE ROAD,

JOINED THEM.

Girly girls Elly and Maddy think it's a great day to build an outdoor playhouse, as Marmalade the Cat basks in the sun and looks on with interest. But just as the girls' design begins to take shape, there's a sudden interruption.

Their neighbor Toby, wearing his superhero cape, speeds through the playhouse on his scooter and wreaks some havoc on their plans, and then zooms off, red cape waving behind him.

Miffed, the girls regroup and decide to move to the sandbox, where they methodically begin to sculpt an equally ambitious sand castle city.

Obviously, Toby wants to play with the girls, but he has a lot to learn about charming les femmes. He falls back on that old masculine standby, silently showing off his athletic ability. Elly and Maddy don't seem at all impressed, but Elly's cat Marmalade seems to see some promise in Toby and rubs up against his legs.

Trying to get in on the game, Toby offers to make a moat around the castles, but when he turns on the hose, he doesn't notice that there's a lawn sprinkler still attached to the other end. Suddenly the sand castle city is deluged with geysers of water. The girls are wet and bedraggled, the castles are history, and a very wet and spooked Marmalade leaps into a nearby tree and scoots way up. Too far up, it seems, for him to come back down, even when the girls implore him. He creeps further and further out on a skinny branch.

CRACK!

MARMALADE LET OUT A SCARED "MEOW!"

Can action hero Toby save the day? There's more than one way to make use of that cape, and Toby wins the girls over with his gallant kitty rescue, in Alison Reynolds sequel to her first book, A Year with Marmalade. It turns out that Marmalade sees through Toby's rough exterior to the potential friend inside, in A New Friend for Marmalade (Little Simon, 2014). Artist Heath McKenzie shows the girls in light-handed pen-and-ink drawings, while adding emphasis to the story's stars by adding watercolors to Marmalade and Toby's cape. Soon even Marmalade is sporting a cape, and the three kids get back to work on a new and improved sand castle city. A fun story for cat fanciers, with a small lesson on accommodating to the different styles of play among friends.