A beloved children's rhyme about the three little kittens' ups and downs with their lost, found, soiled, and washed mittens is accompanied by adorable illustrations that are sure to have youngsters purring with delight.

Janovitz (the Little Fox books) here pays faithful homage to the Mother Goose feline trio with the text, while revealing a humorous back story through full-bleed illustrations. The kittens, drawn in fine line against a pastel-toned background, have soft pink cheeks and fluffy white bellies as they cavort near the flower bed, tossing their mittens into the air. When the three lose their mittens, observant readers may spot them scattered in the tree, the flowerbed and on the fence. "What! Lost your mittens, you naughty kittens! Then you shall have no pie," says their mother when they report the news. Young readers will enjoy helping the kittens with their mitten-finding quest, and their mother rewards them with slices of blueberry pie. Even as the mother scolds her offspring, her nurturing manner always feels welcoming, and the kittens come across as winningly dedicated to play rather than mischief. Ages 3-6. (Aug.) Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

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PreS-K-This festive edition of the classic nursery rhyme opens with purple-and-white polka-dotted endpapers that match mother dear's dress. The merry trio dances and prances so hard, they lose their mittens- and so the story unfolds in the usual way. Keen-eyed children will have fun finding the lost items in the pictures. The blueberry-drenched mittens are duly washed, with one little kitten spilling laundry soap all over the floor. At the end, they all smell a rat close by and go hunting for it. The last page shows the happy rat eating the remnants of blueberry pie. The illustrations are bright and cheery with adorably mischievous felines. The mother cat seems more amused than annoyed by her children's troublesome antics. Janovitz chooses her words to read better grammatically: "Oh, mother dear, we sadly fear that we have lost our mittens." To those who know the classic version ("our mittens we have lost"), this may seem a bit stilted. For a fun Three Little Kittens marathon, team this book with Tanya Linch's playful and geometric version (Gullane, 2001) and Anna Alter's take (Holt, 2001), in which the kittens find a thief.-Bina Williams, Bridgeport Public Library, CT Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.