sCATtered!

November 1, 2024
Grandma's return from a trip to Katmandu triggers frantic rounds of cleaning up and gift shopping among a feline family. Young readers in need of a truly methodical guide to making estimates may have to look elsewhere, since Stephens confines definitions and actual strategies to her afterword, rendered in a smaller type. The tumultuous tale itself shows the kitten siblings wildly choosing numbers at random: "Tons of toys are sCATtered on the floor. How many more can we stuff in this closet?" Nor do the cluttered, frenetic cartoon illustrations invite viewers to make judgments of their own, with household items often simply jumbled together in indistinct masses that spill off the edge of the page; the containers or spaces meant for them aren't clearly depicted, either. The shopping expedition doesn't go any better: The lack of a price tag on the "purrfect present" (a scarf) leads to uneducated guesses ranging from 42 cents to 500 cents, with the actual price improbably turning out to be near the low end of that span. The author waits until the end to offer the crucial insight that estimation "is not finding a right or wrong answer," as with other sorts of math problems, before cheerily bidding "Goodbye for meow!" A CATegorically unhelpful introduction to estimation.(Informational picture book. 5-7)

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January 1, 2025
Grades K-3 Kids who find math rigid or daunting will be charmed by this messy, busy story of nine kittens frantically scurrying around, planning a welcome home party for Grandma. The cats encounter all kinds of obstacles: finding hiding places for all the books and toys strewn everywhere, ingredient requirements for a volcano cake, the price of a perfect present, and the length of a festive banner. The solution to each conundrum involves estimation, and in each case, the kittens rise to the challenge. At first, they throw out wild, random guesses but eventually get closer, and tips for estimating are even provided at the end. The vibrant, page-filling illustrations do an especially effective job of capturing the chaos with exploding frosting, shredding banners, and Grandma leaping into the fray. This effortless introduction to estimation makes a great read-aloud and works equally well for very young audiences or as reinforcement for slightly older students, who might also enjoy the additional estimation challenge hidden in the book. Pair this with Stephens' previous CATastrophe (2021), a first book about patterns.

COPYRIGHT(2025) Booklist, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.