How Many Kisses? begins by inviting the reader to give one kiss to the cat, two kisses to the dogs, three kisses to the flowers and so on, following a classic counting technique until readers reach the number ten. The book then takes wild jumps up to seventeen, sixty-four, 823, and finally `millions', prompting a riotous explosion of kisses from the reader. By encouraging the child to interact physically with the book, each reading becomes like a game that celebrates all the things in a child's life that they love, while familiarizing them with numbers and counting.
The unique twist in the counting narrative gives physical expression to numbers too large for younger children to quantify, while inspiring an enjoyment of counting.