Book Review: KITTEN'S FIRST FULL MOON

1. BIBLIOGRAPHY
Henkes, Kevin. 2004. KITTEN'S FIRST FULL MOON. United States of America: Greenwillow Books. ISBN 0060588284

2. PLOT SUMMARY
Who knew a story about a kitten and a moon could be so entertaining, but famed author Kevin Henkes manages to create an adventure like no other. In KITTEN'S FIRST FULL MOON, readers are introduced to a female kitten who mistakenly thinks the full moon is a bowl of milk that she so desperately wants. In order to capture her “bowl of milk” she stretched her neck, sprang from porches, climbed up trees, raced through grass, and even leaped with all her might, but she was unable to get her “bowl of milk.” As she walks home, defeated, the kitten is surprised with a bowl of real milk waiting for her on the porch.

3. CRITICAL ANALYSIS
Kevin Henkes’s writing of a naive kitten who mistakes the moon for a bowl of milk would be a wonderful picture storybook to share with children in Pre – K through 4th grade. Henkes word choice is simple to understand, yet uses vivid words to describe the actions of the kitten throughout the story. The use of repetitive phrases such as “Still, there was the little bowl of milk, just waiting.”and “Poor Kitten!” helps to make the book an interactive read aloud because children will be able to hear the pattern and participate in the reading of the story.

The Caldecott winning illustrations also add another layer to this story. Stories that occur during night can sometimes appear scary to children because of all the dark colors, but Henkes avoids this pitfall by using pale grays and whites to create the appearance of night without making it intimidating to children. He also uses rounded edges and lines when drawing the kitten features such as her whiskers, paws, , ears, and tale. The plants featured in the story such as leaves, flowers, and trees also are drawn with rounded edges which makes the overall pictures in the book less threatening. The illustrations also align quite well with the text on the page. On several pages he has multiple pictures that where draw in conjunction with the text. Children could very easily use the illustrations along with the text to help them read the story, which is a sign of an effective picture book.

4. REVIEW EXCERPT(S)
PUBLISHER'S WEEKLY review: “The narrative and visual pacing will keep children entranced, and the determined young heroine and her comical quest will win them over.”
SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL review: “The rhythmic text and delightful artwork ensure storytime success.”
BOOKLIST review: “…the elemental words, rhythms, and appealing sounds, tells a warm, humorous story that's beautifully extended in his shimmering, gray-toned artwork.”

5. CONNECTIONS
*Discuss the difference between regular verbs (examples: run and jump) and “vivid verbs” (examples: chased and sprang) with students. Read the story and have students find examples of vivid verbs and create a class list for writing.
*Do an author study on Kevin Henkes by completing other read alouds of Henkes’ books and compare plot, characters, and illustrations.
*Other books for children about the moon (recommended by SCHOOL LIBRARY JOURNAL)
Asch, Frank. MOONGAME. ISBN: 9780689835186
Wallace, Nancy Elizabeth. THE SUN, THE MOON, AND THE STARS. ISBN: 9780618263530

Competency 9: Internet

While using www.google.com, I found the website Reading Rockets at www.readingrockets.org. This website caters to teachers, parents, and librarians. In my opinion, the main goal of the website is to help children learn how to read and encourage children to keep reading. Reading Rockets has resources such as tips to help struggling readers and suggested books for children to read. The webiste also has podcasts which include interviews with authors for both children and parents with information about the authors' lives and the books they have published. I chose this website to include in my blog because, besides what I have listed, it has an abundance resources and tips that can assist librarians to help encourage children to read.

Competency 8: Multimedia

I went to http://www.youtube.com/ and found this wonderful multimedia video clip. Once a week, during the summertime, several elementary schools open their library and welcome their students in to listen to read alouds and check out books. The librarians give out summer reading lists and have a summer reading program to encourage students to keep reading. I think this is a great idea, that I would like to do one day in my own library! Keeping a school library open during the summer will give the children a place, where they feel comfortable, to come and get books to continue to improve on their reading skills.

Competency 6: The Snowballing/Citation Pearl Growing

After completing my specific facet I decided to use descriptors from a hit I recieved from LibLit to perform my snowballing/citation pearl growth.
I will perform a citation pearl growth/snowballing search in the database ProjectMuse.

Braxton, B. Encouraging Students to Read for Pleasure. Teacher Librarian v. 31
no. 3 (February 2004) p. 39-40.


The descriptors I added to my orginal query of "encourage children" and "reading for pleasure" are "school librarians" and "aims and objectives". After adding these new terms I recieved a total of 5 hits.


From those 5 hits I chose the article below:
Stauffer, Suzanne M., Developing Children's Interest in ReadingLibrary Trends - Volume 56, Number 2, Fall 2007, pp. 402-422 - Article

I use this search strategy often, but I didn't know it actually had a name. I think it would be eaiser to preform if I were actually able to use the same databse to preform the search. Otherwise, I think ProjectMuse was user friendly.

Competency 6: Successive Fraction Search

In my successive fraction search, I used the database WorldCat. I used the broadest facet first, which was "reading for pleasure." I recieved 1, 268 hits.

Then I narrowed my search by added 2 more facets, "encourage children" NOT "teenagers." I also limited my hits by language and asked for the hits to only come back in English. I recieved only 12 hits.

From the 12 hits I chose, Influencing reading motivation and attitudes : classroom factors that encourage third graders to read for pleasure by: Kamela Marin Garcia. 2002

I found this database to be extremely helpful because it has several different ways you can narrow down a search. I also liked this search as well because it helped me to think of ways to narrow down my search to get more specific topics to my query.

Competency 6: Specific Facet Search

My query for this search was "What tools can librarians use to encourage students to read for pleasure?" Once I took out the stop terms and non-content terms I was left with the facets, "tools" and "librarians" and "encourage students" and "read for pleasure." From those facets I selected "reading for pleasure" as my specific facet. I used LibLit as my database and once I entered my specific facet and it yielded 78 hits.


From those 78 hits I felt hit number 20 realted to my orignal query.

Braxton, B. Encouraging Students to Read for Pleasure. Teacher Librarian v. 31 no. 3 (February 2004) p. 39-40.

LibLit yielded serval relevant hits, and also had a "new search by subject" section which is very helpful in producing more hits that spoke to my orginal query. Overall I thought LibLit was very user friendly.

Competency 6: Building Block Search

Search Topic: What tools do librarians use to encourage reading for pleasure?
Database: ERIC
S1 = tools or concepts or strategies = 232, 688 hits
S2 = encourage children or motivate students or prompt adolescents = 1, 482 hits
S3 = reading for pleasure or reading for enjoyment or reading for amusement or recreational reading = 1, 417 hits

S4 = S1 AND S2 AND S3 = 5 hits

Using the search strategy worksheet provided, I brainstormed a list of synonms to try and rinder better search results. After completing my building block search I ended up with 5 hits.

Of those 5 hits I chose: Sports Splash: A Handbook of Reading Activities for Use with Children. A Fun with Reading Book. Thomas, Carol H. 1983, 120 pp, 0-89774-000-9

This is the first search strategy I tried and I liked it becuase it forced me to think of synonyms for the terms I was using in my searches. I feel that search has opened my eyes to new ways of refining my keywords to yield better, more specific hits.