Good day, beloved readers! I have another book to bring you, one which is probably best suited to cat lovers, children, and the young at heart. In this post, I will be reviewing Sunshine’s Excellent Adventures by Reggie and Anita Hill.
Sunshine is a sweet, adorable kitten with an uncanny ability to make friends. His secret, you ask? “The best way to make friends was to treat them exactly the way he wanted to be treated.” This philosophy serves Sunshine well as he transitions from living under a big pier with his mother, brothers, and sisters to a new, permanent home with the humans Anita and Reggie. This new home turns out to just be the beginning of the happiest time of his life, his happiest adventures.
Image retrieved from Amazon
In thirteen short pages, Sunshine’s Excellent Adventures follows Sunshine on his adventures, from his firsts—first home, first trick, first vet visit—to everyday adventures such as making friends with Speedy the Squirrel and his daily chore of making Reggie and Anita laugh. Each adventure serves as its own story, very short stories with minimalist plots, but stories nonetheless. All that connects these stories to each are Sunshine and his journey as someone’s beloved pet, but that’s enough to string the adventures together.
With simple writing and vibrant illustrations, Reggie and Anita Hill create a fun and adorable account of this kitten’s life. Sunshine is a very likeable character; he’s outgoing, kind, and loving, a cat that young and old readers alike will feel a connection to. Reggie and Anita only explore the other characters very briefly, including the fictionalized versions of themselves. They take the time to portray Sunshine’s mother, Momma Motley, as tender and caring in order to give a good picture of Sunshine’s first home, but they show very little else about her. Normally, this lack of characterization for the supporting characters would bother me. However, as this book seems to be for children, it doesn’t really detract from the quality.
Perhaps most impressive about this book is how consistently positive it stays. Sunshine starts as a stray with a mother who worries about being able to feed all her babies. However, even this scenario is portrayed in a positive light as Sunshine makes friends with all the creatures he encounters while wandering around the pier. I suppose that older readers will find a lack of emotional satisfaction in this storytelling style because it somewhat softens the miracle of Sunshine being adopted. Still, younger readers, particularly young children, will find this positivity much more palatable and will be happy to see how happy Sunshine always is.
I would not call this book an “intellectual” read or even a moral one. Still, as is typical with a children’s book, life lessons are woven into the commonplace moments which make up Sunshine’s adventures: make friends by being nice, there’s nothing to fear from a doctor’s visit, it’s better to be your quirky self than to fit a mold, etc. These lessons are too on-the-nose for adult readers, but they are perfect for children who need a little push to go on their own “adventures.”
Overall, Reggie and Anita have written a cute book which will make any reader laugh and go “aww.” If you love cats and happy stories and/or want a light to share with your children, you’ll definitely want to snag a copy of Sunshine’s Excellent Adventures. A word to the wise: either buy the print version or read the Kindle version on a tablet rather than a smartphone. The illustrations will look much better on paper or, at least, on a larger screen.
You can buy Sunshine’s Excellent Adventures by Reggie and Anita Hill as an e-book or in print on Amazon.
Do you know of any books I should read and review? E-mail me at thewritersscrapbin@gmail.com and let me know!
Designed by Stephanie Hoogstad circa 2011