Book Review: This Kitten Has Blue Eyes

Reviewed by Toni Woodruff

Encourage your child’s literacy with this bright blue book centered around a fun & puppy-like cat breed.

Ragdoll cats! They’ll greet you when you come home and follow you from room to room. And sometimes…they have bright blue eyes! With this fun, unique-looking cat taking center stage, this nonfiction children’s book also teaches eager young minds how to practice their comprehension and word-recognition so they can improve their reading skills. 

Reading this book is a teamwork activity, where a parent or teacher points to each word on each white-only, word-focused page as they read aloud. Soon that child could be the one doing the reading. 

It’s simple and refreshing that the sentences are so easy, and they are always describing exactly what the cat is doing in the adjacent picture. I’ve read too many children’s books that have words that just don’t match up to the picture. In this one, that’s not even close to a problem. If you see a sentence like, “This kitten is in a box” or “eating,” you better believe that’s what they’re doing.

In addition to being clear and focused intently on the act of reading, the book compiles a list of sight words and tips on reading to your child and encouraging them to participate. Sight words are ones you don’t often get a chance to show a child (like pointing to a hat and calling it a hat) but ones that show up in books & other written-word regularly, like “has,” “in,” or “this.” While elementary ed teachers might know that teaching sight words is helpful, everyday parents won’t encounter this reading tip very often in the picture books on their shelf. I like that. 

And it really helps that the list of reading tips at the end are actually helpful and nuanced! From sight words to decoding to “-ing” endings to putting sounds together, the book does so much to help foster active reading & comprehension in children. We know as parents that we want to teach them, but we don’t always know how. This book helps with that.

The reading age is recommended as 4-7 here, but I could go a little younger than that, perhaps 2-5. Also, while the cat is cool, the pictures don’t always inspire.   

Still, This Kitten Has Blue Eyes does some great work in getting children to read and getting children to talk about reading & reading skills.

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