Familiar Diversions
I'm a librarian who loves anime, manga, and reading a wide variety of genres.
Currently reading
The Adventures of Snuffy the Cat by Clarence Barrows, illustrations by Julie Moody
Snuffy the kitten gets out of her owner's car and is accidentally (?) left behind. A frog tells her that Farmer Brown's daughter likes kittens, so Snuffy goes on a little journey to what she hopes will be her new home. Several animals help her along the way. (Is Snuffy's previous owner frantically searching for her after accidentally leaving her behind? Or did her previous owner accidentally-on-purpose abandon her? I have no idea.)
I'm not a child, and I have no little children to read to, so I'm not really this book's target audience. However, if I were reading this to children, I would be annoyed by the errors in the text and the inconsistent formatting.
Examples:
"What a strange looking fellow," thought Snuffy, "he has big bulging eyes and long legs, and a great big tummy". "Who are you?" asked Snuffy.
Snuffy's thought is two sentences, but it's written as though it were one. Also, it bothers me that the end quote for the thought is inside the period, rather than outside. The author placed the end quote outside the period in other places in the book, so it's not that he doesn't know to do it. And, if we're going to keep this basically written as is, "Who are you?" should have been the start of a new paragraph.
Speaking of paragraphs, some of them are separated by white space, and some of them aren't. As a result, some pages are a solid block of text. I imagine this would be awful to read aloud to a child.
“Yes, I guess I knew that, but I didn’t do that, did I?” Said Snuffy shaking her little head.
Why is "said" capitalized? Also, I'd use a comma after "Snuffy."
Then there are inconsistencies, like Donna Dragonfly saying "Good bye," while Mr. Owl says "Goodbye."
Eh, I'm already tired of listing examples.
I don't know if kids would like the story, but I thought it was fairly boring. I also wasn't a fan of the childish artwork, but, again, kids may like it better. Actually, the artwork is probably the best thing about this book.
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