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de Sève, Randall

This Story Is Not About a Kitten

40 pp. | Random/Random House Studio | October, 2022 | Trade ISBN 978-0-59337-453-5 $18.99 | Library ISBN 978-0-593-37454-2 $21.99 | Ebook ISBN 978-0-593-37455-9 $10.99
(2) K-3 Illustrated by Carson Ellis. This heart-tugging story centers on "a kitten, hungry and dirty, / scared and alone, / meowing sadly, / needing a home." On a walk in the neighborhood with their dog, a child and adult ("the dog's people") spot the kitten under a car. The dog barks at the kitten; a woman jogging nearby calms the dog; adult twins carrying boxes to or from a moving truck donate an empty box for the kitten; a man drinking tea on his front porch offers it milk; and everyone carefully coaxes it into the box. The child gains a new pet, and the kitten ends up "now full-bellied and clean, / no longer alone, / purring happily. / Home." De Sève (Zola's Elephant) constructs the story cumulatively; as the tale unfolds, she regularly negates the notion that its beating heart is about one character alone--the kitten or the child or the neighbors. Ultimately, instead, it's about "stopping / and listening / and... offering / and asking / and working together." The final pages are immensely rewarding: Ellis (In the Half Room, rev. 9/20), who paints a diverse and idiosyncratic community of caring and concerned neighbors--strangers no more--gathers everyone together in the kitten's (and her people's) home. Dialogue on the concluding spread reads: "I can't believe you two lived next door this whole time and we never met." That is precisely what the story is about.
Reviewer: Julie Danielson | Horn Book Magazine Issue: September, 2022

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