A Thousand Billion Things (and Some Sheep)

K-Gr 2— Young fans of I Spy and Where's Waldo? will find plenty to enjoy in this seek-and-find picture book import. A white, red-haired, unnamed, and agender child takes readers through the day, extolling all the wonderful choices that life presents. At breakfast, the child enjoys choosing between "butter[ing] a mountain of toast" or "drowning an avalanche of breakfast cereal in milk." Surrounding the white space containing the text are a blizzard of carefully drawn images of foods and kitchen items from which audiences are asked to pick out the smaller version of the box of breakfast cereal depicted with the child. Each spread repeats this pattern with some variation in degree of difficulty. The number of items to locate changes, and audiences don't always get an example image to help them. The child's day finally ends with the lamentation that bedtime is simply the worst because there is no choice—it's just counting sheep! Children are then encouraged to count as many of the sheep as they can, an open-ended challenge that will suit a wide range of abilities. Clément's and Montel's use of complex vocabulary and abstract concepts elevate the slight narrative—the market is "a heavenly place," and at the bakery, our young protagonist ponders whether "all this choice is an eternal delight or an infernal torment." The tiny detailed objects fill up each page and offer plenty of interest for repeat reads. An answer key is included in the back, but readers might prefer to create their own challenges after the required items have been located.