Kitten’s+First+Full+Moon+by+Kevin+Henkes

Rosanna Navarra

Bibliographical Data: Publication Date: March 2, 2004 Publisher: Greenwillow Books/Harper Collins Publishers Age Level: 2 and up Series: New York Times Best Illustrated Books (Awards)

Author Biography: Kevin Henkes been writing and illustrating children’s books for over 30 years. He was born in 1960 in Wisconsin. He loves books as a child and loved looking at the illustrations. He went to college at University of Wisconsin because of their School of Education’s Cooperative Children books Center. He learned about children’s literature and then went to New York, and worked on his first published book. He is a great contributor since.

Summary: Kitten First Full Moon won The Caldecott Award. The main character is the kitten and the setting of this story takes place on a porch and on the field. The kitten in the story sees a full moon and thinks it’s a bowl of milk. At first she tries to lick the moon but a bug ends up on her tongue. Then she tries to catches the moon but falls down. So she decides to chase it and run, she goes through the field, into the garden and by the pond. Then she sees a tree and decides to climb it to the top so she can reach the moon. Then she notices a bigger bowl of milk in the pond but then realizes it’s just the moon shining down. Then she gets really sad and tired and goes back home. Waiting for her was a nice bowl of milk. Kitten was happy and felt better.

Review: I thought this book was really cute for young as toddlers. The book reminded my childhood being curious, and wanting something really bad. I feel that this book has a message of encouragement to go after what you want. I feel little children will really enjoy this book. It has a lot of humor suspense. I feel like I was rooting for the kitten to go for it and keep trying. Knowing that it was just a moon I still was hoping for a happy ending. What a night Kitten had! Also, the book includes perception on how some things look smaller than they actually are, like the moon. Also, how the moon reflects into the pond was also mentioned. This book is a keeper and cannot wait to share it with my students.

Analysis: I would say the best part of the book is the illustrations. The illustrations are done so well you don’t even need words to understand the concept. The book is done in black and white. Throughout the whole book the only colors you see are black, grey and white. The shading of the colors brings out the illustrations to emphasize the parts. The author makes it look like he just drew the book; it looks so real and fresh. On page 12 there is a lot of great shading this shows the different places that kitten went by to get to the moon. The author also shows emotion on the kittens face in each page, so not only can you read what is going on but also the author makes it easy for you to see what is going on by the pictures and expression on kittens face. On the page where kitten catches the bug her eyes light up like you know exactly what she is thinking. I would definitely use this in my classroom and have my students sequence the events. Kitten goes through different things to get to the moon so sequencing would be a great activity to do.

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