The Tiniest Tiger, a review

I won't wait until the end to tell you that I loved this book. Of course, it has a lot of things I enjoy... small kitties, big cats, zoos, and an environmental message a Crunchy Con type can love.

A little lost kitten finds herself in the Zoo where she hopes to locate where she belongs. She makes her way to the Big Cat area where she first has a chat with a tiger. The tiger explains why she could possibly be a part of the tiger family (she has stripes and all) but there are too many differences for her to be a tiger. She sends her to talk to another of the big cats to see if she belongs to that family. This goes on as each big cat explains how she is like them but also too different to really be a part of that particular cat family.

Each conversation with a big cat is accompanied by beautiful water color pictures as well as the large zoo sign that describes statistics about that particular cat (a tiger, a a cheetah, a lion, a clouded leopard, a puma, a jaguar, a bobcat, and an ocelot) and the map where they are located in the world. It also shows that each big cat is on the endangered list. For those who love happy endings... this has one, at least for the kitten. :)

As a homeschool mom emeritus, this book is perfect for those families that use "whole books" for their learning. One could read the entire book to the children (or have an older child read it) and then spend time learning more about each cat and what it means to be endangered (science) and their home countries (geography).

Of course, it also makes for a beautiful and interesting read for any child but I'm afraid I always will look at these types of books from a homeschool mom perspective. :)

There is a recommendation by Jack Hanna and a portion of each sales goes to the Conservation Fund of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium. Amazon has a fairly good representation of the book which allows you to "peek inside".

This copy will be on its' way to New England in the next Grammie Package.