A book with charming characters weighed down by repetitive storylines and excessive exposition.
Three cats and their human companions explore the San Francisco Bay Area in these fanciful illustrated stories.
In her debut collection for children, Conlan, aka “The Flannel Cat,” weaves together seven interlocking tales of cats named Storm, November, and Roy, interspersed with famous poems, such as Carl Sandburg’s “Fog,” and whimsical, albeit inexpert, colored-pencil drawings. Each story offers particulars of the cats’ lives before they were adopted by “The Top Cat” (their human owner), and they effectively characterize each animal. Storm, for example, was visiting San Francisco with her family from Paris as a “young girl-cat,” when she got lost and ended up in a shelter; she still sings a French ditty whenever she’s nervous. November, or “Novy,” was a sickly kitten who now practices yoga and eats vegetarian foods—and passes gas a lot. Roy, or “Gray Wolf,” wandered away from his indigenous Pamo family, which taught him “how to survive in the wilderness—that was why he wore a backpack.” Together, the cats explore San Francisco’s Pier 39, almost fall off the Golden Gate Bridge, are treed by wild boars on Mt. Tamalpais, and ride trains and build sandcastles at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk. By the middle of the book, however, the repetitious plotlines involving lost-and-found cats grow tiresome. The illustrations of cats in yoga poses and riding on roller coasters are inherently fun in their subject matter. However, the artwork itself seems unskilled, detracting from rather than enhancing the story. Excessive details about the history of each location slow the action and often read like a San Francisco Bay Area travelogue. By the final story, which devotes too much text to descriptions of a Honda Element and its license plate, readers’ attention will have wandered like an adventure-seeking feline’s.
A book with charming characters weighed down by repetitive storylines and excessive exposition.Pub Date: Aug. 1, 2015
ISBN: 978-1-4809-2009-5
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Dorrance Publishing Co.
Review Posted Online: Dec. 11, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift.
A paean to teachers and their surrogates everywhere.
This gentle ode to a teacher’s skill at inspiring, encouraging, and being a role model is spoken, presumably, from a child’s viewpoint. However, the voice could equally be that of an adult, because who can’t look back upon teachers or other early mentors who gave of themselves and offered their pupils so much? Indeed, some of the self-aware, self-assured expressions herein seem perhaps more realistic as uttered from one who’s already grown. Alternatively, readers won’t fail to note that this small book, illustrated with gentle soy-ink drawings and featuring an adult-child bear duo engaged in various sedentary and lively pursuits, could just as easily be about human parent- (or grandparent-) child pairs: some of the softly colored illustrations depict scenarios that are more likely to occur within a home and/or other family-oriented setting. Makes sense: aren’t parents and other close family members children’s first teachers? This duality suggests that the book might be best shared one-on-one between a nostalgic adult and a child who’s developed some self-confidence, having learned a thing or two from a parent, grandparent, older relative, or classroom instructor.
A sweet, soft conversation starter and a charming gift. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: March 1, 2017
ISBN: 978-1-943200-08-5
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Compendium
Review Posted Online: Dec. 13, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2017
Broccoli: No way is James going to eat broccoli. “It’s disgusting,” says James. Well then, James, says his father, let’s consider the alternatives: some wormy dirt, perhaps, some stinky socks, some pre-chewed gum? James reconsiders the broccoli, but—milk? “Blech,” says James. Right, says his father, who needs strong bones? You’ll be great at hide-and-seek, though not so great at baseball and kickball and even tickling the dog’s belly. James takes a mouthful. So it goes through lumpy oatmeal, mushroom lasagna and slimy eggs, with James’ father parrying his son’s every picky thrust. And it is fun, because the father’s retorts are so outlandish: the lasagna-making troll in the basement who will be sent back to the rat circus, there to endure the rodent’s vicious bites; the uneaten oatmeal that will grow and grow and probably devour the dog that the boy won’t be able to tickle any longer since his bones are so rubbery. Schneider’s watercolors catch the mood of gentle ribbing, the looks of bewilderment and surrender and the deadpanned malarkey. It all makes James’ father’s last urging—“I was just going to say that you might like them if you tried them”—wholly fresh and unexpected advice. (Early reader. 5-9)
Pub Date: May 1, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-547-14956-1
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2011
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