Counting Kittens

Readers are invited to count along with this rollicking counting rhyme while enjoying the animated doings of ten kittens as they frolic around the house and yard.

PreSchool-K. In this rhyming story, readers can count 10 kittens as they get into mischief all over the house, and then again as they find homes throughout the neighborhood. Bright, cartoon illustrations match the exuberant tone of the book. However, neither text nor pictures ever ascend beyond the mediocre. Rhymes and rhythms are often forced or awkward; the wide-eyed, grinning expressions of both humans and felines never alter throughout the pages. There are many more engaging counting books, kitten books, and just good stories.?Nina Lindsay, Vista School, Albany, CA
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Counting Kittens (32 pp.; $13.95; PLB $15.95; Apr. 1997; 0-382- 39650-2; PLB 0-382-39649-9): Cute kittens of the greeting-card variety overrun the pages of an awkwardly written counting book. A child whose cat has ten kittens counts them as they romp around the house, in gently comic scenes of the felines playing in predictable and mischievous ways. The child gives all but one away and is last seen asleep with kitten number ten. The structure of the text resembles a song lyric in its repetitions of a stanza (``I'm counting kittens in the kitchen,/Kittens in the hall./I'm counting kittens in the bathroom./I'm counting kittens climbing up walls''), but it's not very melodic. The end words often only approximate rhymes, and the meter--frequently distorted--does not facilitate reading aloud. (Picture book. 4-7) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.