Children love the ridiculous. The first picture book to be a runner-up (Honor) book for the Newbery Award, Millions of Cats by Wanda Gág (published 1928), certainly meets the “ridiculousness” standards for a young child to giggle at. With silly but adorable plot, quaint black-and-white illustrations, and hand-formed text, the book still has eye-rolling childhood

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I read the first book in the Ava and Pip trilogy many years ago, when my kids were very young. Now that My daughter is 10 years old, I felt like it was time I revisit it, especially since there are two other books in the series that were not around when I reviewed the

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Lost Cat by C. Roger Madder (Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2013) has gorgeous illustrations of a cat and the feet it encounters as it tries to find its owner after it’s lost during a move. I love how the pictures showed things from the cat’s perspective! Each of the different shoes he met gave him a

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Socks (1973) is not a Beverly Cleary book I ever discovered as a child, but I love it! It’s a simple story told from the perspective of a cat named Socks, beginning with his first day of true consciousness: the day he would be sold by the boy and girl who had taken care of

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Pilgrim Cat by Carole Antoinette Peacock and illustrated by Doris Ettinger (Albert Whitman 2004) is a historical fiction picture book written in prose. It does not read as well as Tattered Sails (reviewed here), but it does provide a different perspective on Thanksgiving. It tells a story of traveling on the Mayflower, settling in Plymouth, working,

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Square Cat by Elizabeth Schoonmaker (Aladdin, 2011) is about Eula, a square cat, who finds life frustrating since she can’t do what cats are supposed to do. Her friends try to help her fit in, and ultimately Eula and her friends realize that it’s fun to be different. There is lots of white space to make the

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Puss in Boots illustrated by Fred Marcellino and with text translated from Charles Perrault by Malcolm Arthur (Caldecott Honor 1991) has gorgeous pictures. Each picture has a texture to it that gives it a sophisticated feel. The details are amazing. The story is the traditional story of Puss in Boots. I feel a bit ambivalent

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