Playfully and skillfully balancing two languages, this cat tale proves cute and clever.
A fashionable feline with nine siblings teaches Spanish words and counting as part of a trip to town.
The titular cat, who walks on two legs and wears a top hat, a scarf, boots, and a vest, is followed around by a varied group of sibling cats who walk on all fours, each of whom playfully pretends to be Gato Guapo. Each time, he counts the cats (“Uno, dos, tres…”), looking for the missing cat, who then appears, shouting, “¡Yo soy Gato Guapo!” and wearing one of Guapo’s items of clothing or accessories. Along the way, the book mixes in unitalicized Spanish words or phrases within the English text, unobtrusively working in enough context that most may be easily understood by young non-Spanish readers. (A word list at the end translates all the Spanish in the book.) Unlike in similar books, this story doesn’t clumsily blend languages or rely on the oft-used technique of parrot-repeating a Spanish word with its English equivalent. Instead, the phrasing flows well. However, what works so nicely in the first few pages is abandoned for the cat reveals. It would have been nice to have seen more of the well-combined bilingual flow. Still, Gato Guapo’s got a lot of style, and so does the book—the anthropomorphized animals cut winsome poses and will readily endear themselves to readers. (This book was reviewed digitally.)
Playfully and skillfully balancing two languages, this cat tale proves cute and clever. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2023
ISBN: 978-0-06-306266-5
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2022
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
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