Catundra

I'm honestly surprised at the vitriol this book has relieved. Please keep in mind that this is a book written for young children. There is more to being healthy and confident than was presented in this book, but again, keep in mind the target audience.

One issue is that the animals of the forest endlessly mock Catundra, no one is her friend since she is judged on her weight alone. This happens in real life all too often (as well as emotional eating to deal with depression and pain) and I would have liked for Catundra to have confronted her bullies by the end of the book and tell them how wrong/cruel they were for their bullying.

Nonetheless, the book's message about exercising and eating right are spot-on, no matter what the haters of show more this book might whine about. show less

I've had this book since I was a child, and it has not aged well. My daughter just asked me to read this to her and I had to get rid of it afterwards. The point of the story is to teach that eating healthy food and exercising is good for you, which is good, but it also teaches that the way to get people to stop making fun of you because you are fat is to loose weight. I have a problem with this because even if someone looses weight it doesn't mean that others won't find something about them to make fun of. Telling children that it's their own fault when someone makes fun of them is a terrible lesson. Children have enough media telling them that thin is beautiful.

One of the worst children's books ever. I love the Serendipity series and pick them up whenever I can find them, but this one just stunk. The moral of the story is that you should change so that people don't bully you. Basically if you are bullied because of your weight you need to exercise until you're too skinny and fit to be bullied. YIKES!

Cute story about the effects of bullying and emotional eating so I would recommend it for maybe an older audience rather a younger audience of Serendipity readers. The writing was sweet, short and simple to understand just like the lessons.

And everyone that likes cats will fall in love with Catundra whether she is obese or thin.

I loved these at 5 or 6, and love them even more at 38.