by Moe Zilla

Created on: March 14, 2010

"Kitten's First Full Moon" won the Caldecott Medal in 2005. But its author-illustrator, Kevin Henkes, had already won a Caldecott Honor in 1994 for a book called Owen, according to Wikipedia, along with a Newberry Honor in in 2004 for "Olive's Ocean." (And he'd even written a #1 New York Times bestseller!) "Kitten's First Full Moon" was actually his 34th children's book, but it feels like a special story, with a plot that's simple and surprisingly compelling. When a kitten sees the moon, she assumes it's a little bowl of milk in the sky.

"And she wanted it."

First the kitten tries to lick up the moon-milk with her tongue. (But instead, she ends up licking a firefly that's hovering near her head!) "Still, there was the little bowl of milk, just waiting." The kitten's next solution? Spring from the porch to grab that moon-milk out of the sky. When that fails, she chases after it through the garden and out past the field...

It's on this page that Henke switches to several illustrations, to show the kitten's desperate chase. And his illustrations are what make the book so much fun. There's bold black-and-white lines, making the pictures seem like a children's comic strip. (Even the night sky is just a blank background created with grey shading...) There's just one sentence per page, because Henke's pictures perform much of the story-telling, and though the kitten never says a word, her expressions make her character come to life. When Henke writes that the kitten climbs "the tallest tree she could find," it's his illustrations that set the tone, showing readers a glimpse at the frantic mood of the confused but ambitious kitten.

My favorite drawing shows the kitten at the very top of the tree - spotting an even larger milk bowl in the reflection of the pond. The kitten closes its eyes smugly, and reaches forward with one paw. Henke contributes four more drawings of the kitten rushing towards the pond. "She leaped with all her might...  Poor Kitten!"

When the kitten makes it back to the grass, she's now dripping wet. But the look on her face is priceless - bewildered, and staring questioningly at the moon. She walks back across the grass, looking down at the ground with dejection.

"And there was a great big bowl of milk on the porch."

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