Catlumbus - Franny Plaia - ★★★.½

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AUTHOR: Franny Plaia

ILLUSTRATOR: Katya Galkina
GENRE: Children's Picture Book
RATING: 3.5 Stars.

In a Nutshell: A cute story for children. Had minor areas of improvement.

Catlumbus (a cat, just in case you hadn’t guessed it) is an inveterate adventurer. He loves travelling on his ship, but is currently bored. When he discovers a treasure map, he immediately jumps to action and begins his quest to locate the hidden bounty.

This is the kind of children’s fiction that will make far more sense to kids than adults. (Which is how it should be, of course. But as adults also read out stories to their children, they should know what to expect.)The plot development is quite simplistic, with a few gaps in the logic, and a few places where the plot jumps ahead very conveniently. Younger kids won’t realise any loopholes, but slightly older inquisitive kids might have many questions. (This adult kid was left with plenty of whats and whys and hows!)

The vocabulary was mostly good. I loved the author’s use of cat puns in the plot with lines like ‘…going to be meowinaires’ and ‘Are you kitten me?’ At the same time, there are a few difficult words such as ‘catastrophe’ and ‘subside’, so adult guidance while reading will be better.

The illustrations are really sweet, with full-colour pages in vivid hues. But I must mention one pet peeve of mine. When animals are depicted wearing clothes, I like consistency. Teddy, who is in his birthday suit, looks quite odd next to Catlumbus who is always wearing his Columbus-style hat and coat.

Overall, it was a cute indie book with a meowlicious adventure, but it will have more appeal to younger readers who accept stories without asking many questions.

My thanks to author Franny Plaia and BookSirens for the DRC of “Catlumbus”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.

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