3 out of 4 stars
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I feel like every child that has a pet likes to imagine that they can talk and interact like humans do. In Diary of a Snoopy Cat Inca, a Siberian detective cat, does just that! The book starts off with Inca’s family tree. It includes her brother and sister kitties, a hamster family friend, and their human mother and aunt. While this is very helpful to the reader, it seems that it could have been taken a step further to include other characters. For a children's book, I feel that there are quite a few characters for young minds to keep track of. In addition, there is a character named Solo and one named Polo. This seems an odd choice since they are not really related. That being said, each character has a vibrant personality and they are all very fun to get to know.
This story is formatted as if Inca was keeping a diary. It has a very informal feel that allows for some playful word play. Inca wants to become the best detective ever! She works with her family and friends to solve the mystery of a missing Will. She puts herself in harm's way to try solve the case, and proves to be a very brave kitty. While this storyline progresses, there is a parallel storyline of Inca’s dog friend, Terrence, helping his humans to find a missing man in the Himalayas. You will have to read this book to find out if they are able to find him!
The book does a very good job of teaching the lesson of treating others with respect. The kitties manage to be friends with dogs, even though they seem to be natural adversaries. One of the dogs, Boss, who is not friends with the cats in the beginning, takes a journey to acceptance of them as the story progresses. This lesson is seamlessly woven into the storyline.
The font used was very dynamic. The author, R.F Kristi, makes great use of text size to emphasize certain words or phrases. They also use bullet points, which gives it the true diary feel. The accompanying illustrations, created by Jorje Valle and Video Explainer, are absolutely adorable and help to bring these fun and spunky characters to life.
I would love to give this cute story a perfect score, but due to some grammatical errors and repetitive sentence structure I give it a 3 out of 4 stars. Some needed commas are omitted, and I personally feel some sentences could be rearranged to flow better. I do not have the best vocabulary, but it is pretty decent, and I had to look up the meaning of two words. Normally, I would welcome that, but with this being a children’s book that type of language seems a bit advanced. Part of that might be a cultural difference in common terminology though. All in all this was a very good book and is one of many Inca stories. I would definitely recommend this if you know any children who like stories about animals!
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Diary of a Snoopy Cat
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