Children's ✦ Penny’s Take
Cat Wishes
Calista Brill · 2018
74/100
👍 Worth It
A cat, a snake, and three wishes — gentle fairytale structure with starred reviews from both Kirkus and Publishers Weekly, and watercolor illustrations that critics compared favorably to Jon Klassen, which is high praise in the picture-book world. The magic conceit is mild fairytale fare rather than anything occult, though families with strong feelings about that territory will want to know it's there; for everyone else, it's a warm and well-crafted read-aloud.
✦ Penny’s Take — this is The Review Group’s own editorial assessment. Penny’s analytical review line researched this book from real sources and scored it across the lenses shown below. It’s an honest first-party read — not a page-by-page personal one. The gold ✓ Penny Tested mark is reserved for books Penny reads cover to cover herself.
⚠ Parent note — our reviewers flagged: fairytale magic conceit (mild concern for some faith contexts). We still scored it 74; these are context for your family, not an automatic skip.
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Show the math
Verdict receipt0–100
Faith & family safety76
Substance / usefulness66
Craft & writing77
Originality62
Evidence & accuracy80
Hype vs delivers68
Age-fit78
👁 Human-eye gut-check74
Penny’s verdict74
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