This is a beautiful board book, with special features on each of its five, two-page spreads. The unmistakable colorful style of Eric Carle’s original book is found throughout, with a smooth yet puffy cutout for the caterpillar, fur for a cat, and shiny bumps for a frog. A bluebird has some textured embossing for her feathers, and a lift the flap climax to the book, revealing a butterfly with holographic reflective surfaces included on the wings.

Each two-page spread includes greenery, florals, and other critters or all kinds. The overall impact is delightful. I only wish it was longer, yet each page has enough to see and enjoy that my little one loves it — and I don’t mind reading it to him over and over!

This is such a clever book! It looks a bit like a board book at first, with the unfinished edges of its cover. Yet, each of its many pages within features photos of colorful foods, surrounded by simple pen-and-ink drawings which place the foods in an illustration that explains the benefits each food offers, For example, two cashews are changed into headphones or a bunch of red grapes become a caring adult helping a child with allergies. The text itself is both simple and eye-opening, briefly describing how the foods help us to heal and be healthy, and then naming the nutrients that specifically help.

For example, “Cashews protect your hearing when sounds around you get too loud (magnesium).” Or, “Red grapes help you fight drippy, sneezy allergies (quercetin).” The book arranges the foods by color ranges, with colored tabs on the outside edges. My little ones love to have me read the book to them, which I enjoy, too. They’ve started to request specific foods for their health benefits, like kiwis for thinking or tofu for teeth, which is a wonderful habit to grow into.

This is a truly delightful picture book for cat-loving children (of all ages). The very clever — yet brief — rhyming text describes what surely comprises many housecats’ typical days, yet here, is described as a series of happy conquests. The illustrations are quite charming, too, as they feature the cat going through the major events of the day. This book describes a cat’s busy day and is illuminating and engaging. If in doubt, this book would make a great gift — for children, schoolrooms, libraries, or anywhere else.