Walks a fine line between charming and off-putting.
Faced with a terrifying enemy, a group of perky felines and their pals discover what it really means to shine brightly.
The four Glitter Kittens wake every morning believing that the world is drab and sad without their sparkling presence. They skip off to brighten the days of their Best Best Friends—a decidedly un-sparkly bunch that includes a cracked bottle, a monocle-wearing potato, and a lone shoe. The self-aggrandizing kittens never notice that their friends, feeling annoyed and jealous, are avoiding them. As soon as the kittens depart, a Glitter-Eating Monster arrives to hunt for its favorite feline snack. The Best Best Friends hesitate but ultimately decide to rescue the kittens. Eventually, the cats sacrifice their glitter to defeat the monster, and glitter rains down on everyone. The kittens don’t mind sharing, and everyone dances off to light up the world together. With its lessons of humility and friendship symbolized by sharing literal sparkle, the tale feels like a more nuanced Rainbow Fish. But important moments tend to rely heavily on body language and subtext, and the youngest readers may miss some of the subtleties. Despite the text’s tongue-in-cheek, saccharine overload of kitties, rainbows, and glitter, the kittens aren’t all that cute. They have beady eyes, pronounced bone structures, and scraggly whiskers. Though the juxtaposition keeps the story from becoming cloying, the overall effect is slightly unsettling.
Walks a fine line between charming and off-putting. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2025
ISBN: 9781665959902
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Caitlyn Dlouhy/Atheneum
Review Posted Online: June 13, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2025
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among
Pete, the cat who couldn’t care less, celebrates Christmas with his inimitable lassitude.
If it weren’t part of the title and repeated on every other page, readers unfamiliar with Pete’s shtick might have a hard time arriving at “groovy” to describe his Christmas celebration, as the expressionless cat displays not a hint of groove in Dean’s now-trademark illustrations. Nor does Pete have a great sense of scansion: “On the first day of Christmas, / Pete gave to me… / A road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” The cat is shown at the wheel of a yellow microbus strung with garland and lights and with a star-topped tree tied to its roof. On the second day of Christmas Pete gives “me” (here depicted as a gray squirrel who gets on the bus) “2 fuzzy gloves, and a road trip to the sea. / GROOVY!” On the third day, he gives “me” (now a white cat who joins Pete and the squirrel) “3 yummy cupcakes,” etc. The “me” mentioned in the lyrics changes from day to day and gift to gift, with “4 far-out surfboards” (a frog), “5 onion rings” (crocodile), and “6 skateboards rolling” (a yellow bird that shares its skateboards with the white cat, the squirrel, the frog, and the crocodile while Pete drives on). Gifts and animals pile on until the microbus finally arrives at the seaside and readers are told yet again that it’s all “GROOVY!”
Pete’s fans might find it groovy; anyone else has plenty of other “12 Days of Christmas” variants to choose among . (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Sept. 18, 2018
ISBN: 978-0-06-267527-9
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Aug. 19, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of...
Rabe follows a young girl through her first 12 days of kindergarten in this book based on the familiar Christmas carol.
The typical firsts of school are here: riding the bus, making friends, sliding on the playground slide, counting, sorting shapes, laughing at lunch, painting, singing, reading, running, jumping rope, and going on a field trip. While the days are given ordinal numbers, the song skips the cardinal numbers in the verses, and the rhythm is sometimes off: “On the second day of kindergarten / I thought it was so cool / making lots of friends / and riding the bus to my school!” The narrator is a white brunette who wears either a tunic or a dress each day, making her pretty easy to differentiate from her classmates, a nice mix in terms of race; two students even sport glasses. The children in the ink, paint, and collage digital spreads show a variety of emotions, but most are happy to be at school, and the surroundings will be familiar to those who have made an orientation visit to their own schools.
While this is a fairly bland treatment compared to Deborah Lee Rose and Carey Armstrong-Ellis’ The Twelve Days of Kindergarten (2003), it basically gets the job done. (Picture book. 4-7)Pub Date: June 21, 2016
ISBN: 978-0-06-234834-0
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: May 3, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
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