123s of Kindness (Books of Kindness) by Patricia Hegarty

Patricia Hegarty's board book pairs each number from one to ten with a small act of kindness, one act that shows you care, two hands joined in a bond, three cheers for a family that looks out for each other, set to rhyming text and warm illustrations that give a toddler something concrete to point at for every number. Rodale Kids built this 12-page, 2022 release short and sturdy for ages 3 to 7, and it's currently averaging 4.7 across more than 4,000 Amazon reviews.

The rhymes do double duty: a child is counting, but the counting is also the vocabulary for talking about sharing and looking out for the people around them, so a parent gets a built-in script for those conversations rather than inventing one after the numbers lesson ends. Because it's built to survive a toddler's handling, sturdy pages, short length, it holds up to the repeat reads this kind of habit-building book depends on. A natural choice for a family that wants the first counting book in rotation to also be doing a little character-building work on the side.