Would You BUY or PASS? The Winter Kitten by Linda Benson #Children’s #FridayFiveChallenge

 

Welcome to the ‘Friday Five Challenge.’

Would you BUY or PASS if you had only a thumbnail image and five minutes to decide?

Welcome to the #FridayFiveChallenge.  The original idea comes from Rosie Amber, and you can join up at https://rosieamber.wordpress.com

The rules are laid out at the end of this post if you fancy having a go.

Here is my contribution for this week:

It’s official; I’ve become a ‘crazy cat lady’.  Six weeks ago we adopted a short haired black kitten which I have named Luna.  She is beautiful, and a total nutter, which means she has fit into the Wilson household incredibly well.  This week I had to take her to the vet to be spayed, and micro chipped.  The huge golden eyes and pathetically sad look on her face have finished me off, and I feel like the worst ‘mommy’ in the world.  I’ve been told that her sad eyes are perfectly normal, and she will recover with no ill effect, but OMG, do I feel bad.  So, as I have ‘kitten’ on the brain I thought this would make a good search topic, and I found this adorable children’s book:

The Winter Kitten (Cat Book Tales) by Linda Benson

Blurb:

Brianna doesn’t know how she’ll make it through her first winter in Portland. It rains too much, she misses her mother and the country life they once shared, and with Christmas coming up she’s having a hard time adjusting to life with only her dad. When she finds a kitten trapped in their garage, Brianna is sure things will get better. But nothing goes as planned, and Brianna wonders what she’s gotten herself into.

CAT TALES is a series of short, stand-alone fiction celebrating the human-animal bond, from award-winning author Linda Benson. They can be read in any order.

My Analysis:

Cover – You can tell I’m a cat owner now because I did the obligatory ‘aww, cute’ when I spotted this cover.  The grey tone stood out against the abundance of multi-coloured and cartoon covers, and I clicked on the title straight away.

The book blurb – I like the sound of the story, and the topic is engaging.  The human-animal bond, especially for children, can teach us so much about life, loyalty, and responsibility – important aspects for the target audience to understand.  The age range for this series is 10-18 years, and the writing reflects this.  I used the ‘look inside’ feature and found the language and flow appealing.  There are six books in this series, and they are marketed for ‘cat lovers of all ages’.

The Stats – There are 41 pages, and the Kindle price is £0.99.  There are 27 reviews on Amazon.co.uk, all of them three stars and above. There are 32 reviews on Amazon.com, 91% of these are four and five stars.  Here is an example of a five-star review:

Short but very sweet, this is a lovely tale and very readable, I am a great believer that animals help people and are capable of bringing people together, this is that kind of story. Read it in a very short time, but that wasn’t a problem, would definitely recommend for cat lovers of all ages.

BUY or PASS? – It’s a short read and only 99p.  It also met my search criteria.  I love the cover and think my daughter would love to read this too, so it’s a BUY from me (& Luna!)

The Winter Kitten – buy your copy.

Amazon UK

Amazon US

Take a look at who else has taken part in the Friday Five Challenge:

Liz finds a maritime YA story.

Rosie takes a look at Road Trips.

Cathy finds a Steampunk Fantasy

What is the Friday Five Challenge?

In today’s online shopping age, readers often base their buying decisions on small postage stamp size book covers (thumbnails), a quick glance at the book description and the review. How much time do they spend making that buying decision?

AUTHORS – You often only have seconds to get a reader to buy your book, is your book cover and book bio up to it?

The Challenge is this… IN ONLY FIVE MINUTES…

1) Go to any online book supplier,

2) Randomly choose a category,

3) Speed through the book covers, choose one which has instantly appealed to your eye,

4) Read the book Bio/ Description of this book,

5) If there are reviews, check out a couple,

6) Make an instant decision, would you BUY or PASS?

(then write a little analysis about your decision)