Sarah HowdenCritiques

Poor Jeremy, our grumpy little cat on the cover, has to wet a cone when he comes home from the vet's. He decides to call himself "Cone Cat" because he can't get the cone off his head! This story is all about his adventures with the cone on his head.

This is a sweet, little story book for your little ones. It's cute, fun and an easy read. It has goofy shenanigans of our friend Jeremy trying to learn how to deal with the cone on his head.

There isn't much education in this book, but it was still a sweet story and it had a plot. At least it was fun and cute! It's something that I can see animal lovers flocking to.

I like the illustrations in this book. It's rough yet pretty all at the same time. It's simplistic yet super fitting for the story. For me, it made the story stand out and look absolutely great!

Overall, I think this book is a great addition to any picture book shelf.

Four out of five stars.

Thank you to NetGalley and OwlKids for providing me a copy of this book in exchange for an honest review.

I received an ARC from NetGalley. This book is hauntingly good. The (primarily) black and white illustrations set the tone. It is hard for kids to process feelings, especially feelings like grief. This book could either allow a child to start a conversation, or, just as important, allow them to feel normal for NOT wanting to have the conversation yet.

Something bad happened and the boy doesn't like to talk about it. To get away, he digs a hole in his bedroom floor and tunnels his way out of the house into the backyard. He could just disappear and no one would know where he had gone. But when he sees his mother through the window, it moves him to go back through the tunnel and into his room, where his mother comes in and gives him a hug. For children who've experienced trauma, an adult can use this work to help process heavy feelings.

I like the way Jeremy came to terms with his cone.

Captures the experience of grief, especially the particular loss of a parent and partner. Spot color used effectively.

Something has happened in this little child’s world. We don’t know what has happened but there is grief and sadness. Sometimes in the sadness you just want to be by yourself and away from the things that remind you or make you feel pressure. And our main child decides to dig a tunnel. The tunnel is under his bed and out to the night world. While out in the night world he sees his mother in the living room with his aunt and the sadness that emanates from the pages both from the words and the illustrations can be felt by both the boy and the reader. It helps all realize that sometimes you may need solitude but you always need your family. This book is wonderful for its simplicity. Its nonspecific and it could be anything. It could be troubles at school, it could be money problems, and it could be a death in the family. There are so many things that could bring about the situation that symbolizing how it feels works tremendously well. They are children that need this book so hopefully every library will have a copy.

Darlene is worried about making a mistake when asked to show off her square knot to Michelle Obama when her Girl Scout troop camps out on the White House lawn, but the First Lady encourages all of the girls to have faith in themselves and that it's okay to make mistakes.