Review by Booklist Review
Following his Caldecott Medal-winning The Lion & the Mouse (2009), Pinkney presents another interpretation of a classic, in this case the familiar nursery rhyme about three naughty kittens. The text is well paced and creatively displayed: meow and purr sounds stand out in color-coded script as a cue for young ones to chant along. Practically life-size, the wide-eyed felines tumble joyously across each full-page spread, losing, finding, soiling, and cleaning their mittens. Throughout, the sense of play is fun and contagious, the threat of punishment gentle but firm, and the rhyme limited yet effective. The pencil-and-watercolor art is characteristic Pinkney and places the romp at the very beginning of mitten season with a pale autumn palette. Some of the figures and shapes lose distinction when viewed close up, but the effect is strong and appealing from a distance. A worthy companion to Paul Galdone's quintessential 1986 retelling with the same title.--Medlar, Andrew Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
On the heels of his Caldecott win for The Lion & the Mouse, Pinkney offers another masterful visual interpretation of a classic narrative, albeit one with less gravitas. Wearing mittens newly knitted by their mother, the adorable and feisty kittens frolic outdoors with three birds (one sporting a woolen hat, one a striped scarf, one a shawl). Readers will delight in spotting dropped mittens among fallen leaves before the kittens announce their losses to their mother. Rendered in graphite, color pencil, and watercolor, Pinkney's sparkling-eyed young cats-in bows, bells, and lace-are almost impossibly (and perhaps overly) cuddly and precious, exuding boundless energy and capricious emotions. The author's tweaks of this rhyme lighten its tone slightly: the mother cat calls her kittens "careless" for losing their mittens and "silly" when they dirty them eating pie-never "naughty." Pinkney adds a sly final flourish: playing outside, one kitten has already dropped the knit cap that her mother has just given her. A cozy domestic drama set within a rich, autumnal wonderland that begs exploring. Ages 3-5. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review
PreS-The well-known nursery rhyme gets the Pinkney touch in this sumptuous edition. The cherubic felines on the front cover invite readers to follow their mishaps from acquiring the mittens, to losing them, to finding them, to getting them all dirty, to washing them, and-judging from the exuberance of the final spread-losing them again. Pinkney's energetic kittens need every inch of each spread to tell their story. Their mother, who has been represented in past versions as rather fearsome when the kittens confess their carelessness, is gentler here, although clearly long-suffering. Still, she has a sighing patience that children will find comforting. The ability of the youngsters to turn their carelessness into play (finding the lost mittens becomes a counting game, and they seem to have as much fun washing the pie-covered mittens as they did getting them dirty in the first place) is a hidden charm to the rhyme that is developed here; details such as a red cardinal reflected in a stray bubble escaping the washing tub has more "cheer" than "chore" in it. The palette of autumn colors is warm, despite the evidence of mittens and scarves, and the use of white space for the background makes the illustrations sparkle. This is another superb entry in the artist's catalog of classics for a new generation.-Kara Schaff Dean, Walpole Public Library, MA (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review
In this classic nursery rhyme, a mother cat threatens her three careless kittens with the loss of pie-eating privileges if they don't find their mittens. Cannily playing up the story's fundamental frivolity, Pinkney beribbons (and ultimately bemittens) the kittens and puts "mother dear" in bows. Young readers will get wrapped up in the light, relatable-to-kids dramatics. (c) Copyright 2011. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
Judging by these twelve recent contributions (nine stories, three brief features), Asimov's SF Adventure Magazine is mostly aimed at the less lively reaches of a ninth-grade mentality. This anthology includes such competent juveniles as Jack C. Haldeman II's ""Longshot"" (extraterrestrial racing yarn), Roger Zelazny's ""The Last Defender of Camelot"" (Launcelot standing off a resurrected Merlin), Poul Anderson's ""Captive of the Centaurianess"" (neo-Nazi swine getting their comeuppance from a race of Amazons coyly called ""ladies""), and Frederick Longbeard's ""The Jaren"" (gallant warrior-brotherhood confronting beastly human invaders). Keith Minnion's ""Ghosts"" (about a rescue-mission pilot in touch with certain post-mortem energies) and Barry B. Longyear's ""The Magician's Apprentice"" (just what it sounds like) are about equally tame but marginally crisper in effect. Altogether an insipid collection. Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
