The rooster struts. The frog hops. The giraffe strides, the monkey swings, and by the last page every small listener is off the couch demonstrating. Richard Scarry's classic is a catalog of the wonderful ways animals get from here to there, drawn with the warmth and wit that made his Busytown books furniture in half the nurseries of America.

The tall, narrow format suits the subject: room for a giraffe to be properly tall, for a rooster to strut the full width of the page. The text is only a line or two per spread, which makes it a first animal book a one-year-old can follow and a two-year-old can finish for you from memory.

Twenty-six thick board pages in a proven Golden Books edition. Buy it for the child; keep it for the grandparents who remember the original from their own shelves.