Click here to see my review on Goodreads. ♡
*I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
As a student currently writing a Master’s thesis about Children’s literature, I just absolutely had to choose to review that book when it got recommended to me on Booksirens.com! When I saw the cover, I melted: can we take a moment to appreciate how wholesome the illustrations are and how cute the font is? Animal alphabets are one of my favorite things when it comes to Children’s books, I find them beyond cute! Moreover, the ideas of the writer resonated a lot with me. She is indeed a woman who fights for Animal Rights and that is a cause that is so dear to my heart as well. As you can tell, I really liked that book and let me tell you why in more details.
The illustrations
I love how the text is mixed with the illustrations. You can indeed have text on one page and illustrations on the other but here, you have one full-page illustration and next to it, a page dedicated to text which also has illustrations on it. To me, it is so so so important to put a lot of illustrations in Children’s books and it is definitely the case here. I love it when art has a real place in the book and is not just here to « illustrate » the text. Of course it is important to represent the text graphically, but when illustrations can also be an independent way to read the book, I like it even more. Moreover, pastel colors are my favorites, so it was all perfect to me.
The text
Let’s now focus on the text because illustrations matter (a lot) but are not everything, right? The text is the best as well. First, know that there are lots of rhymes, which makes reading the book so entertaining. Indeed, when you read it to a child, it almost sounds like a song, which is definitely liked by young children. I also enjoyed the fact that a lot of onomatopoeias are used: it makes the text so lively, especially (once more) when it is read out loud, which is often the case when it comes to children’s books.
The message of the book
As I wrote in the introduction, I share beliefs with the author as far as Animal Rights are concerned. I do not want to give « spoilers » here (I notice that for Children’s books, people usually give spoilers, but I love reading these books myself as a twenty-something woman so maybe other people want the surprised as well lol) so I will simply tell you what the main messages are, according to me.
The first message would be that even if they are different, human beings and animals can love each other astonishingly deeply. However, we as humans, need to be careful when we adopte a pet. It would not be thoughtful, indeed, to separate a kitten from their mother if we know that we can provide for both of them.
The second message given in the book, in my opinion, is that no matter how tiny (and young) you are, you can do whatever you put your mind to. I truly think it is a message children need to hear as they are too often told that they are « too young » but quite often too, children are right where adults are wrong.
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I really hope you liked today’s review. You go it: I totally recommend that book to all of my librarians-teachers-mothers readers. Of course, if you are just like me, a twenty-something who still enjoys Children’s literature so much, go for it as well!
The English-speaking Frenchie 