James Dean takes The Ants Go Marching, hands it to Pete, and lets him play it his way. The tune everyone already knows arrives with a rock and roll twist, and within about ten seconds a room full of children is marching, which is the entire point.

The counting is doing the work underneath. One by one, two by two, all the way to ten, with the repeating lyric giving early readers something they can predict and therefore join in with. Predictable text is how a child first experiences the feeling of reading, and confidence built that way tends to stick.

Paper over board, so it takes a beating better than a jacketed hardcover, which matters for a book that will be waved around. This is the Pete title to pick for a classroom, a story time or any occasion where the goal is getting a group of children up and moving rather than sitting still.