Kitten’s Spring. Eugenie Fernandes. Toronto, ON: Kids Can Press, 2010. 24 pp., hardcover, $14.95. ISBN 978-1-55453-340-4. Preschool-kindergarten / Ages 1-4. Review by Pam Klassen-Dueck. **** /4

excerpt:

Morning hums

Kitten listens.

Frog croaks,

Tadpole glistens.

A calico kitten explores the sights and the sounds of spring on the farm.

Kitten’s Spring is the first of four books in a series, one for each season of the year, featuring an adorable feline. Kitten’s Spring is certainly an appropriate title for this story because it takes place in the season of spring –– and the kitten certainly ‘springs’ across the pages of this charming picture book!

     The gentle story, rendered through short rhyming couplets, takes place through the course of a day. As young readers hear the story of the kitten who observes a variety of animals and their offspring –– including frogs, chickens, sheep, and cows –– they will enjoy imitating the animal sounds that are encouraged by the rhymes (such as “Sheep baaaaaaas”).

     This picture book’s strength is in the appealing artwork which consists of self-hardening clay, acrylic paint, and mixed-media collage. The colours are fresh and are appropriately indicative of the season. Young readers will enjoy tracing the kitten’s jaunt across the colourful pages, particularly when she is hiding within the pictures (for example, in a corner of a page within the verdant grass). There is much to look at on each page and so, upon subsequent rereading, children will find new things to observe.

     I was curious about the kitten’s detachment from her mother, particularly because the text and the artwork emphasize the relationships between the animals and their offspring. The kitten seemed isolated –– and maybe lonely –– to me. That is, until my father, a retired teacher and farmer, pointed out that, on the second last page, it looks as though the kitten overturns everything in the farmhouse entrance and then goes to sleep without a care, meaning that she is likely spoiled rotten by her human caregivers!

     This picture book, with its soft rhymes and charming mixed-media artwork, will delight young readers.

Highly Recommended.

A Manitoban, Pam Klassen-Dueck is a certified teacher and a new mother.

NEXT REVIEW |TABLE OF CONTENTS FOR THIS ISSUE - May 7, 2010.