Can You Top That?

January 3, 2000
Reminiscent of woodcut illustrations, Lee's (I Had a Hippopotamus) multimedia art, which combines gouache, India ink, watercolors and occasionally pastel chalk, is the most distinctive feature of this rather humdrum counting book. A cast of multicultural children, engaged in a variety of outdoor activities, play a game of one-upsmanship as they brag about the creatures they allegedly possess: "A snake with three tongues--I got a bird with four wings! Can you top that?" asks a soccer-playing girl. And her peers try to do just that, claiming in turn to have a cat with five eyes, a dog with six ears, a pig with seven snouts, etc. Lee's renderings of the more freakish of the creatures may be a bit frightening to preschoolers, though the images of the animals contain some fanciful flourishes (e.g., a fish with one fin sports a bow tie, the dog wears purple sunglasses and the pig has a heart-shaped tattoo dedicated to "Mom"). Even Lee's sly visual punch line is not enough to save Nikola-Lisa's (Bein' with You This Way) repetitious narrative. Ages 3-up.