If you are a cat lover and enjoy their antics, then this is the book for you!

It is a short children's book and I'm an adult and I thought it was super cute!

I immersed myself in this entertaining book, which evoked a huge smile on my face from the moment I read the first line!
I read it to my daughter who loves cats and thought it was so funny and silly.

I love the rhyming of it all and how it explained a cat's “nine lives”.

The drama between Nessie and Mitten is also just too adorable.

And the illustrations were so cute, colorful and full of life and joy!

Thank you to the publisher and NetGalley for the E-ARC copy of this book. The rating of this book is entirely of my own opinion.

I loved this cute rhyming book about experience. The illustrations are a lot of fun and will delight almost any cat lover. I hope there is more to come from this author.

This is a cute book with illustrations, but there is a LOT of writing on each page. I think with more pictures/pages and less writing on each page, it would be easier to read.

This is a cute tale of a cats life with a little bit of history. I enjoyed the play on 9 lives. She’s a experienced cat so nothing gets by her!

This is the cute story of Nessie and Mittens. Nessie is very worldly and explains all of her adventures to Mittens. I loved the beautiful illustration. At times it was a bit wordy. Overall a great read for young cat lovers.

Thanks to NetGalley and XPresso Book Tours for access to this ARC.

If I were the publisher of this book, I’d rework it quite a bit. It’s the opposite of what a picture book should be in many ways — too much text. Not enough pictures. The book is cute and the characters are interesting, but there’s just not enough there. The structure makes the book entirely too short I can’t sell this at 12 pages. The rhymes are sometimes cute, but many seem forced, and the meter is really inconsistent. I think an adult reader would find it hard to enunciate and would stumble. It really is cute, and the illustrations are nice, but the problems are too many.

Thank you to NetGalley for the opportunity to review the e-book of City Kitties by Rizwan Asad.

City Kitties is about two cats, Mitten and Nessie, that live in the city. Little Mitten tries to play tricks on Nessie, but is never successful. When Mitten questions Nessie about why this is, Nessie tells Mitten about all the lives she's lived and the wisdom she's gained from those experiences.

I was drawn to this book because of the cover illustrations, which I found cute and I know many young readers that would pick up this book just because of the cover. I hoped for similar illustrations throughout the book, but unfortunately that isn't the case. There are a couple of illustrations that are on the same level, but many of them are either a bit busy or more simplistic. I think that young readers would still enjoy a lot of pictures, but there are a few pages that are harder to read because the text is laid over a busy background.

The story itself is cute and told in rhyme, which I think can be appealing to young readers. I think that children will enjoy the antics of Mitten as well as how Nessie smoothly avoids each prank. I think they will also enjoy considering all the different things that a cat could experience over many lifetimes. There are a few educational tidbits that may encourage parents or teachers to use this book as part of their lessons.

#NetGally #CityKitties

City Kitties is a wonderful children's book - it's written with a rhyming structure, and illustrated wonderfully. Asad gives us a fun and imaginative story here, and I appreciate that he doesn't beat us over the head with the life lessons. As a one-time teacher, I believe children are far smarter than we give them credit for, and stories like this cater to that.

Like with Asad's blog (which I am admittedly a regular reader), there's a genuine warmth to this story. For those that connect with Asad's writing style on Chocolates & Chai, this will be a winner. And for those that haven't read his blog, I still think this is worth checking out - the story is fun, imaginative, and cleverly written. The illustrations are wonderful; they express the story and the characters perfectly.

That said - this is not a perfect book. I feel that the amount of writing per page is a bit much. That can be an issue for maintaining the attention spans of our young ones. Every page is well illustrated, but more illustrations would be welcome allowing the text to spread out more. Ideally, I would have liked maybe one more page to flesh out the ending a bit more.

4.5/5 Stars

(This is a slightly generous rating on my part. While doing my readings of other reviews before writing my own, I noticed some reviewers gave low ratings for quite ridiculous reasons ("I don't like books that rhyme" or "I don't like cats much." - why pick up a rhyming book about cats if that's the case?). Otherwise, this is a solid 4/5.)

Thank you NetGalley and Ness House Press for the review copy. All opinions presented are my own.

Far too much text on each page, and the book itself is exceedingly short. This book looks like it was created by someone who doesn't quite understand the picture book world.

In City Kitties by Rizwan Asad we meet street smart Siamese cat, Nessie, with the curious and playful black kitten, Mittens.

In kind of a long poem, and with engaging illustrations, we are brought along while Nessie recants her amusing adventures around the world and through history. Nessie still has two of her nine lives left, so she invites trickster Mittens along for some instructional fun. Focus less on the pranks and make the most of all nine lives, and one day Mittens too can claim to have "been there, done that!"

This is a great book for animal lovers, but beware some of the wording is a little awkward to preserve the rhyming structure. It works, mostly, but there are times when it falls a little flat.

Many thanks to NetGalley and Ness House Press for a free copy to enjoy in exchange for an honest review.

City Kitties
by Rizwan Asad

I received a digital copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

The illustrations were cute and captivating. The story could have been spread out further onto more pages. The rhyming was pretty good - my kids always enjoy books with rhyming. As a parent I try not to be too censoring but the older cat states that on her many travels and adventures she’s “had many flings”. Now the English language is a complicated one and words like “fling” can have many different and varied definitions. While there is a legit definition that could be interpreted as a temporary wild jaunt etc. This definition is more nuanced than I believe the average person will be aware of existing. Were I to have read this with my kids which I didn’t only because the digital formatting for this particular book was not conducive to holding their attention they would have asked me what this word means and I would have given them all the definitions as I often do with unfamiliar words. Then they may have trotted off and used this phrasing - “had a fling” at their childcare location which is primarily staffed by college girls in the afternoons and that phrasing would have been interpreted as had a temporary sexual relationship as is the the most common interpretation of that phrasing of the word fling and then I would have been called by the director and it would been a whole thing.
In general we love books about cats because we have a cat. The Illustrations were great and the rhyming was pretty solid which is always popular but I probably won’t be reading this one to my kids any time soon.

3/5

A cute little book about a cat who tells a kitten the story where they have been through it’s many lives—as cats have nine lives—we get to see some places they have been. This is book for cat/animal lovers, and it’s such a simple yet good book to read.

I received this book from the publisher via NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.

Very cute book about one older and wiser cat sharing her life stories with the young kitten why she's never fazed. How she's 'been there done that' all the adventures, from posing with Cleopetra to eating at Paris with Monsieur Bonaparte, etc.

I like City Kitties.

It is a light reading with delighful illustration. The characters are also adorable. You should read the phrases. They were written in rhyme. I am amused.

I love when Nessie smirked while she was telling mitten about her adventures, from Britain to France, from a witch to a queen.

Thanks to Net Galley and Ness House Press for approve my request.

What an adventurous, beautiful story about a cat detailing her past experiences of travel to a young, mischievous kitten!

I loved that this one rhymed too, I think kids will enjoy that aspect along with the beautiful art and imaginative storytelling! If you’re looking for a children’s book that is both fun and heartwarming, definitely check out City Kitties!

4/5⭐️

A big thank you to NetGalley and Ness House Press for the ARC. This is a children's book. The graphics in this book make the book! They are fabulous. The story is ok. The rhyming to me seemed so forced. Just let it go and tell the story. Not really sure where the story was going anyway. But the graphics were spot on!! 3 stars

CITY KITTIES by Rizwan Asad is a children’s storyline told from the perspective of Nessie, the Siamese Cat.

Mittens the kitten is a playful small cat but Nessie the Siamese never falls for her tricks. Asking why, Mittens is rewarded with a tale of nine lives, seven of which Nessie claims to have lived throughout time.

CITY KITTIES is sweet, short children’s story using ABAB rhyming scheme with colorful images detailing Nessie’s adventures throughout history but in the end her favorite adventure has been sleeping on the lap of her person back home where her imagination takes flight.




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CHAPTERS/INDIGO (Sandy_At_the_Reading_Cafe) posted

Although I loved the illustrations, the story fell short for me. It was very wordy, and the prose really struggled. Also, I'm not sure I enjoy the message. When I read it to my children, it didn't hold their interest because of the long and forced rhyming lines. Overall, this one isn't for me, which made me sad because those kitties are so very cute!

Thank you to Netgalley and Ness House Press for access to this arc.

The illustrations are the best part of this one. Scampy Mitten is truly a mischievous kitten trying his best to pounce at or on Nessie but always ending up just a flick of his tail behind her sidesteps. Why can’t he catch her out? Well let Nessie tell her tale of a long life well lived, filled with adventures, travel, and time spent with lots of interesting people. The rhyming story is well done but maybe a bit long for younger children to stay interested in and hard for them to relate how traveling a lot leads to not falling for kitten tricks. I think kids might also easily understand who a generic “pirate” is but maybe not know who Napoleon or Cleopatra were. I felt that after Nessie finishes her story and leaves to enjoy a lap nap, the end was rather abrupt. The parts of this one just never quite came together for me. C+