Kitten's First Full Moon

Written and illustrated by: Kevin Henkes

Henkes is one of my absolute favorite authors/illustrators. I love all the stories he writes about animals and my students enjoy his stories just as much as I do. Kitten's First Full Moon was a story I came across that I had never read before.

The front cover of the story is very interesting because it was just black and white-no other colors. This is very unlike some of Henkes other works with bright, inviting colors like Chrysanthemum and Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse just to name a couple. This is what enticed me to pick up this story-the fact that it's different from what I've read before by this author.

This story is about a hungry and persistent kitten who really needs some food and keeps confusing the bright moon with a bowl of milk. The pictures are done using gouache and colored pencil. Some pictures are full-page bleeds and some illustrations are in frames. The text is never part of the picture. One idea I had about this story is that the text and illustrations suit each other. They are both simple and this simple text does not call for elaborate illustrations.

The story consists of just black and white with Henkes using different shades of black to add texture to the pictures. Since the kitten is alone, the pictures are simple in that they focus just on this kitten. There's nothing in the background that doesn't need to be there. Whatever the text is saying is what the picture contains. For example, the text states, "So she [kitten] ran to the tallest tree she could find, and she climbed and climbed and climbed to the very top." This was one page of text and the illustration which coincides is a close-up of the kitten climbing up the bark of a tree.

I think young children can appreciate this text for the simple story and illustrations. Readers really feel it's nighttime with the illustrator just using white and different shades of black. It's a nice change to read a text like this if you're always used to reading books with colorful illustrations.