Castaway Cats

I wasn't really expecting anything special from this book, but it was truly wonderful!!! The rhyme and rhythm are both incredibly well thought out and constructed-- the rhyming is complex and utilizes alliteration, play-on-words, high level vocabulary, and subtle references to things outside the story. The book is fun and imaginative, but still includes high level rhyme and vocabulary, which gives it a beautiful balance! The book even includes short verses including math (how many ways can we make fifteen?). There are many levels and layers to this book which keep it interesting!!

FANTASY: The cats talk, wear human clothing, and can do human tasks. The cats can sail, build a raft, and converse just as humans do.

Using rhyming text, Wheeler weaves a story about 15 cats who are shipwrecked on an island and discover they must work together if they are going to get anything done.

This book was just sort of 'eh,' for lack of a better explanation. I found it did grow on me with a second reading, but honestly most kids aren't going to be looking for an encore reading if the book did not grab them right away. Despite the picture book format, this book is definitely more suited for elementary school-age children than preschoolers or younger. The language is a bit complicated at times, especially in the sentence structure. It actually can take some effort to keep track of which cats are doing what.

I do like that there's a bit of math in this book and show more appreciate the moral about the cats needing to cooperate. However, there are so many great picture books available that I don't see this one needing to be high on anyone's to-read list. That being said, it's worth noting that the illustrations by Ponder Goembel are top-notch and something lovely to see. show less

The text of this is way too long unless you figure out that you can sing it to the tune of "Darling Clementine." Then it's way more fun, even though there are a couple lines in a different font here and there that *don't* fit the song. Those lines seemed extraneous to me, though, so I'm not really sure why they did that. Cute illustrations.