Stars: ****1/2
This book was counted towards the ARC Challenge.
This is a 47-page picture book with non-fiction qualities. This book would be good to read to/with children 8 and up. It’s the story of a little kitten who is lost and looking for where he belongs. He walks through a zoo and encounters different wild cats who compare themselves to him and then declare they are not the same and send him to the next cat. For example, the Tiger tells the kitten that although he has a pink nose and striped tail, the kitten is not a tiger and perhaps she should go check with lion.
Every time kitten comes across a new wild cat, she sees a sign that gives facts on the cat such as how endangered it is, body length, weight, life span in wild and in zoos, litter size, status (such as all tiger species are endangered or Asian lions are endangered but African lions are vulnerable) and a small map that shows where in the world they come from.
It’s a really cute book with a happy ending that can help teach children about big cats. I think it’s a great idea. I only have two small suggestions for what would make this book better.
1. Most of the pages are words on illustrated backgrounds but there are a few plain white pages with text. I found it a lot harder to read the text on the plain white background because it was boring. I liked looking at what was happening while I read about it and I’m sure children would prefer that too.
2. Only the plain white pages have page numbers on them. It’s a personal pet peeve of mine to have books with no page numbers but to have one with numbers on some and not others is just silly. (I also dislike that magazines do that.)
Overall though I do recommend this book to a child interested in big cats or as a supplement when teaching about big cats.
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