WHY DO KITTENS PURR?

Playful verses explore the mysteries of the animal kingdom with the wide-eyed wonder of a child. Bauer’s (Runt, 2002, etc.) simple rhymes form a tongue-in-cheek lesson on the whys and wherefores of animal behavior. The animals featured are an engaging blend of creatures of high-interest to the preschool set. She examines a puppy’s wagging tail, a lion’s ferocious roar, some squeaky mice, and hibernating bears. The format of the text follows a set pattern in which an observation about the natural world is presented as a basic question, with answers that are sometimes fanciful and other times factual. Bauer even arranges the responses into clever riddles for readers to decipher: “Why do spiders spin? To make a plate to keep their dinner in.” Cole’s (City Chicken, Jan. 2003, etc.) colored-pencil and acrylic illustrations pull the tale together, featuring a young boy wandering through his house and encountering the varied fauna described in the verses. Cole’s paintings are at their best when they blend the reality of the boy’s life with the fantastical images of the animal antics: a humongous lion lounges next to the kitchen table, holding a bowl labeled “kitty,” a tree branch grows into the child’s bedroom through a window, and frogs hop down stairs that end in a lily pond. Full of fun, Bauer’s tale is just right to share with fledgling naturalists. (Picture book. 3-7)