A NUMBER OF NUMBERS

A fresh set of broad, busy visual scrambles from the creators of An Alphabet of Alphabets (2018).

In cartoon scenes rendered with a retro look, illustrator Sanders goes from one unicyclist up to a teeming orchestra with 20 choristers and 188 instruments to spot, followed by a U.S. map with the states identified just by initials and a building site with 100 hard hats to count. Along the way, he strews triads of folktale characters (bears, goats, mice, etc.) on one spread, arranges sextets of knights and cannonballs throughout a cutaway castle on another, and invites viewers to identify the occupations of 11 train passengers, trace a maze to match 17 items with their owners, and like challenges. Efforts throughout to reflect at least a modicum of racial diversity in depictions of human figures may run aground on an Ark full of pairs including a white Noah and his equally pale wife—not to mention the stereotypical feather-headdressed Native American with teepee and totem pole in North Dakota—but do put this one up on some of Waldo’s more parochial excursions. Also, younger or less visually acute viewers may find the art’s clean lines and harmonious color schemes easier on the eye than more-challenging albums like Manuela Ancutici’s I Spy 123, with photographs by Ruth Prenting (2017), or even Walter Wick’s classics.

Some miscues but overall an engaging entry in the seek-and-find genre.