Gato Guapo
by Anika Aldamuy Denise; illus. by Zara González Hoang
Preschool    Harper/HarperCollins    40 pp.
2/23    9780063062665    $17.99

“His miau miau was sweet / as he pranced down the street, / calling, ‘¡Oye! ¿Qué pasó, papo?’” This lighthearted counting book, written in a smooth blend of Spanish and English, follows Gato Guapo and nine kitten hermanitos on a jaunt through town. When Gato Guapo stops to count the kittens, however, he discovers numero nueve is missing: “OH NO! Where’s Rodrigo?” A page-turn reveals “silly Rodrigo” sporting Gato Guapo’s sunglasses and declaring, “¡Yo soy Gato Guapo!” With each counting attempt, from nueve down to dos, another kitten disappears (we never see where), always popping up on the following spread wearing an article of dapper clothing and claiming to be Gato Guapo. Finally, with just “one lonely gatito” left, Gato Guapo realizes: “Who took all my clothes?” Playful drawings, rendered digitally from watercolor and colored pencil, provide a clever and engaging backdrop that features other animal characters and Spanish vocabulary. A list of Spanish words and phrases is appended.

Pubissue-From the May/June 2023 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.