Scaredy Kate by Jacob GrantMy rating: 3 of 5 stars
I love the illustrations in this book. You can see the texture of Kate's hair and the fur of the various monsters. I enjoy the roundness and the use of color. I'm not an art expert nor an illustrator but I do enjoy looking at the pictures in this book.
However, I believe the story could use more words. The beginning is charming. I like how
Kate and her fear of the monster that is Cookie is first introduced. Strong illustrators tend to let the pictures tell most of the story; Scaredy Kate is an example of this. Independent readers can follow the story easily through the pictures. But as a story-time book editing out nearly
all the action leaves a lot of work for adult readers to do.
Some might argue this leads to a totally unique retelling of the story. Every time we pick it up we get to tell the story a different way. Sure, that's true. But at the end of a long day a lot of parents don't have the energy for explaining that Kate ran from the dog and is now out in the hallway, nor that the elevator door must have opened, or been left open, nor that the package or gift was left in the elevator but belongs on the tenth floor.
There is a point where what story is left seems to get tired of telling itself. We start off learning that on the second floor, a monster with two big ears waddles onto the elevator.
2and Floor.
Two Ears
Adjective for movement.
We like this. With this characterization of movement, and the cute pictures we can animate the action with our imaginations as we read it.
This pattern continues until the Sixth monster. Then the inhabitants of the elevator are just lists: Sixth floor - six legs. You can almost hear the writer say "et cetera."
This is very likely due to page limitations. We only get 32 pages to tell a complete story. However, there may have been a way to create a better balance between the words and the illustrations while maintaining the ideal page count.
Sure, the repetition can get mundane. Picture books risk being boring for parents who are forced to read them over and over. But children feast off of the predictable nature of stories on their level. Ann Whitford Paul writes about this in her book "Writing Picture Books". Shortening this very important section gives parent-readers permission to skip what few words there are during the many re-reads and thus miss the point that this story is a tool for teaching number language.
The tenth floor and it's monster aren't explained at all. It's evident from the pictures that the doors open to some sort of rooftop garden- or park-like penthouse. The monster on the tenth floor has ten polka-dots on his belly,
but it's something I have to make up words for every time we see it. Kids would enjoy hearing that the tenth monster, was the biggest of all and shambled over to Kate. Then Kate summons her courage, overcomes her fear, and delvers the package. In this way you bring the story back to the theme of Kate's fear of monsters just by keeping the repetition going one more time.
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| Jacob Grant author/illustrator |
See my entry on "Manana, Iguana", by Ann Whitford Paul for tips on how to keep the repetitive nature of picture books interesting for both readers and listeners.
All that being said, my daughter does love this book. She likes to touch Kate's hair. She likes how scared Kate is on the elevator. She loves the "Delivery!" part, as my husband and I always embellish it. She really likes the ice cream party at the end. I do have to mention that dogs can't eat ice cream every time we see Cookie again, but it's a cute picture.
In conclusion: The illustrations are great! The story is good but a little rushed. Jacob could have taken a little more time and put a few more words in to tell the story in a more satisfying way. My kiddo enjoys it, but my husband and I often have to fill in a lot of the missing story to help her understand what's going on which we don't always have the energy to do. Fun story for the kiddo, not so fun for the parents reading it.
I recommend this book for older listeners who are familiar with numbers and just like to see the colorful pictures, as well as young readers who are just starting to pull the books to themselves and read on their own.
If you like this story consider buying it from your favorite local book store. Check out more of Jacob Grant's work.
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