A charming introduction to the world of exotic cats and endangered species.
Whimsical watercolor pages alternate with stark black-and-white text in this story of a lost kitten working its way through the Big Cat section of the zoo, looking for its family.
On its journey, the kitten encounters a tiger, lion, cheetah, clouded leopard, puma, jaguar, bobcat and ocelot, noting similarities and differences between itself and each big cat. The tiger sends the kitten to the lion because the kitten lived in a group and lions live in prides. However, the lion soon hears the kitten purr and sends it off to the cheetahs, as cheetahs purr and lions don’t. Some featured traits, such as purring, are easy to understand, but others, such as proportion to size, may need further explanation for young readers, as the illustrations do not clearly reinforce the trait being highlighted. Also challenging is the fact that, perhaps due to their exotic nature, the cats answer the kitten’s simple questions with long, complex sentences. At the book’s conclusion, the kitten falls asleep in the tiger section, and the zookeeper’s daughter asks to take it home (though mistakes the feline for a baby tiger). Along the way, “Key Facts” sections give nitty-gritty information about cats, including their status on endangered species lists, though the author leaves it up to adult readers to explain the meaning of the term “endangered.” Major facts shared include population status (ranging from endangered to critically endangered to vulnerable), weight, life span (for wild creatures and those in zoos) and litter size; a world map shows each cat’s habitat. Although the narrative is simple enough for a child, some concepts are more appropriate for those at higher level of education. In this way, the target audience is unclear–while the layout resembles that of a transitional book, translating complicated sentences will require the help of an adult.
A charming introduction to the world of exotic cats and endangered species.Pub Date: March 3, 2008
ISBN: 978-1-4196-8467-8
Page Count: -
Publisher: N/A
Review Posted Online: May 23, 2010
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
Themes of freedom and responsibility twine between the lines of this short but heavy novel from the author of Because of Winn-Dixie (2000). Three months after his mother's death, Rob and his father are living in a small-town Florida motel, each nursing sharp, private pain. On the same day Rob has two astonishing encounters: first, he stumbles upon a caged tiger in the woods behind the motel; then he meets Sistine, a new classmate responding to her parents' breakup with ready fists and a big chip on her shoulder. About to burst with his secret, Rob confides in Sistine, who instantly declares that the tiger must be freed. As Rob quickly develops a yen for Sistine's company that gives her plenty of emotional leverage, and the keys to the cage almost literally drop into his hands, credible plotting plainly takes a back seat to character delineation here. And both struggle for visibility beneath a wagonload of symbol and metaphor: the real tiger (and the inevitable recitation of Blake's poem); the cage; Rob's dream of Sistine riding away on the beast's back; a mysterious skin condition on Rob's legs that develops after his mother's death; a series of wooden figurines that he whittles; a larger-than-life African-American housekeeper at the motel who dispenses wisdom with nearly every utterance; and the climax itself, which is signaled from the start. It's all so freighted with layers of significance that, like Lois Lowry's Gathering Blue (2000), Anne Mazer's Oxboy (1995), or, further back, Julia Cunningham's Dorp Dead (1965), it becomes more an exercise in analysis than a living, breathing story. Still, the tiger, "burning bright" with magnificent, feral presence, does make an arresting central image. (Fiction. 10-12)
Pub Date: March 1, 2001
ISBN: 0-7636-0911-0
Page Count: 128
Publisher: Candlewick
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 1, 2001
BOOK TO SCREEN
Bishop’s spectacular photographs of the tiny red-eyed tree frog defeat an incidental text from Cowley (Singing Down the Rain, 1997, etc.). The frog, only two inches long, is enormous in this title; it appears along with other nocturnal residents of the rain forests of Central America, including the iguana, ant, katydid, caterpillar, and moth. In a final section, Cowley explains how small the frog is and aspects of its life cycle. The main text, however, is an afterthought to dramatic events in the photos, e.g., “But the red-eyed tree frog has been asleep all day. It wakes up hungry. What will it eat? Here is an iguana. Frogs do not eat iguanas.” Accompanying an astonishing photograph of the tree frog leaping away from a boa snake are three lines (“The snake flicks its tongue. It tastes frog in the air. Look out, frog!”) that neither advance nor complement the action. The layout employs pale and deep green pages and typeface, and large jewel-like photographs in which green and red dominate. The combination of such visually sophisticated pages and simplistic captions make this a top-heavy, unsatisfying title. (Picture book. 7-9)
Pub Date: March 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-590-87175-7
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 1999
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