Kitten's First Full Moon- Caldecott Award Book 2

Kitten’s First Full Moon

By: Kevin Henkes

Genre: Children’s picture book

Award: Caldecott Medal

Grade Level: Kitten’s First Full Moon is a great book for Kindergarteners because the pictures portray the text and aid the students in reading. The word choice is appropriate for students of this grade level and prior knowledge is unnecessary for this book. Students may have trouble with the larger words such as ‘bumping’ and ‘banging’, but as long as they understand the ‘ing’ ending in words they should be able to comprehend the story.

Summary: Kitten’s first full moon is about Kitten, the main character, on a particular night where she mistakes the full moon as a bowl of milk. Throughout the story she does all she can to get the bowl of milk like chasing it, climbing to it, and even trying to lick it, yet the bowl of milk stayed waiting. Poor kitten even mistook the moons reflection in a pond as a bowl of milk and leaped right into the water. After being drenched in water Kitten returned home only to find a bowl of milk waiting for her on the porch. Kevin Henkes utilizes white space and black and white illustrations to emphasize the time of day of his story. The composition of the illustrations in relation to the text shows the playful nature of the book.

Classroom Strategies:

While reading the book aloud to the class, have them actively involved by reading together the repetitive aspects of the book, such as all reading together “still, there was the little bowl of milk, just waiting,” each time kitten attempts to get the milk.

Have the students add their own element to the story by brain storming as a class another way Kitten could have attempted to get the milk. After coming up with a few ideas have the students draw illustrations to match an idea the class came up with.

ESOL: ESOL strategies identified include cooperative learning, illustrations, repetition/rephrasing, brainstorming, and group reading.

Read Aloud: I would read the entire book aloud to a kindergarten class because it is short and a fun group reading book due to its repetitive nature. Additionally, the illustrations and text is large enough for all the students to see.

Personal Opinion: I thought this book was adorable and relatable to any student. I don’t even like cats, but the main character Kitten, won me over with her sweet naive nature. The black and white illustrations set the perfect mood for this book and emphasized the night time setting. The use of repetition showed the struggle Kitten went through to get to that bowl of milk and adds a playful nature to Kittens plight for milk.