[BOOK REVIEW] Kitten's First Full Moon by Kevin Henkes

Title:  Kitten's First Full Moon

Author:  Kevin Henkes

Genre:  Animals / Humor / Bedtime / Adventure / Perseverance 

Year Published: 2004

Year Read:  2011

Publisher: Greenwillow Books       

Source:  Library

Content Rating:  Ages 3+ (Nothing Objectionable)

Buy on:  Amazon  //  Book Depository 

I have been reading Kevin Henkes’ works ever since I was a child and every one of his children’s books always featured mice as the main characters.  Well, imagine my surprise when I finally found a book by Kevin Henkes that was about a cat!  “Kitten’s First Full Moon” is a Caldecott Medal award winning book by Kevin Henkes and it is about a small kitten who tries to grab a bowl of milk in the sky (the moon!)  “Kitten’s First Full Moon” is a truly cute book that every child would definitely love for many years!

I was really interested in how well crafted this book was!  Kevin Henkes has done an excellent job at writing this story about a small kitten’s attempts to grab a “bowl of milk” in the sky.  The writing is extremely simple yet cute at the same time and I loved all the creative ways that Kitten tries to get to the moon, like trying to lick at it, jump towards the moon and chase after the moon.  It was also cute in how the kitten mistakes the full moon for being a bowl of milk as it strongly relates to any child’s first experiences with a certain object, like say a child mistakes a piece of chalk for candy and it was this experience that Kitten has that made this book extremely relatable to everyone who had mistaken objects for something else.  Kevin Henkes’ illustrations are truly beautiful and adorable as Kevin Henkes draws the Kitten in an extremely cute manner that my heart literally melted whenever I keep seeing an image of the little white kitten!  I also loved the background images in the story as they truly looking dazzling, especially the scene where Kitten is running through the fields and you can see flowers and tall grass as she approaches them.  The black and white colorings of the images make this book extremely fascinating to look at as it made the images look both dramatic and effective at the same time!

Overall, “Kitten’s First Full Moon” is a truly cute book for children who love reading about cats and experiencing new things in life.  I would recommend this book to children ages three and up since the format of this book is simple for smaller children to read.

* 2005 Caldecott Medal
* 2005 Charlotte Zolotow Award
* 2005 Elizabeth Burr / Worzalla Award