Twinkle, twinkle, little star

Who knew Twinkle, Twinkle, Little Star had so many verses? Now readers will know why they are rarely used. Even Pete the Cat, in all his skinny cuteness, can't overcome the awkward text: When the blazing sun is gone, / When he nothing shines upon. And this just sounds a little creepy: In the dark blue sky you keep, / and often through my curtains peep. Nor does the art serve to turn this into a cohesive whole. Alongside the first familiar stanza, Pete is looking through a telescope at dusk. For the next, the sun is rising, and along with his skateboard from the evening before, a baseball, bat, and soccer ball have appeared. The rest of the artwork follows the cat family through its day, but it doesn't always mesh with the verse. For instance, lines about a traveler using the tiny spark of light is illustrated by Pete holding up his spelling words while his mother cooks peas on the stove. Perhaps it's best not to overthink this? Pete has loads of fans, and the cover features shiny stars. That should do it.--Cooper, Ilene Copyright 2010 Booklist

The Pete the Cat cash machine grinds out another nursery-rhyme-based picture book (Old MacDonald Had a Farm, 2014).Here, the heavy-lidded cat contemplates (kind of) a twinkling star. The book's chief value is in reproducing all five stanzas of the traditional rhyme, presumably to give artist Dean enough material to fill another 32 pages. The aesthetics that have informed the franchise throughout are scrupulously maintained, resulting in the odd, if predictable, disconnect between the celebratory text and the couldn't-care-less protagonist. The verse "How I wonder what you are!" is paired with an image of Pete letting his stoner stare rest on readers, ignoring the telescope that is trained on the twinkling star: He couldn't look further from wonderment. In a delightful departure from his approach in Old MacDonald, Dean seems to be trying to impose a narrative in which Pete ends his day of play to go home, eat supper with his equally bored-looking family, bathe and go to bed. Unfortunately, inconsistency in the color of the skyit's often painted noonday blue and at the beginning discordantly shifts from dusky blue to sunset yellowunmoors readers, and the illustrations often have nothing to do with the text. Pete is at his most appealing when asleep and dreaming of flying a spaceship to the star, one of the only moments in the book when text, tone and visuals truly align.For fans only. (Picture book. 4-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.