Title: Love You When You Whine
Author: Emily Jenkins
Illustrator: Sergio Ruzzier
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Audience: Ages 3-6
Summary: A patient mother cat loves her child despite endless misbehavior.
Literary elements at work in the story: It is probably not possible to overstate how irritating the kitten toddler is in this story, and that is likely the point. Each illustration presents a new vignette of annoying naughtiness: whining, snatching toys from friends, pouring cereal on the floor, painting on the walls, and on and on. However, even when the soft watercolor pictures show a mother’s growing exasperation the simple repeated assurance in the text is, “I love you when …” This steady drumbeat of unwavering love connects the dots in a plotless story.
How does the perspective on gender/race/culture/economics/ability make a difference to the story? These perspectives do not affect the story.
Theological Conversation Partners: This might be an interesting book to read to a group of children or adults as an introduction to the Bible as a whole. The seemingly unending misconduct of the little kitten here parallels the behavior of the people of God. And, even though she grows frustrated and even angry at her child’s behavior, the mother cat’s love does not waver, just as God continues to love human beings, despite our willful wrongdoing. God’s ultimate demonstration of unconditional love is the gift of Jesus: “While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (Romans 5: 8) In like manner, Paul encourages Christians to treat others with this same forbearance in 1 Corinthians 13:4-7. Being patient, kind, not easily angered, hopeful, and persevering takes on a much grittier reality with the image of this mama cat in our heads. Love is not just about loving cooing babies and helpful best friends; it is also about loving toddlers wailing for lollipops in the line at the bank.
Faith Talk Questions:
- How do you think the mother cat feels when her little kitten does naughty things?
- Does she ever get angry? What do you think she says when she is angry?
- Why does she continue to say that she loves the little kitten, even when the kitten does naughty things?
- What sorts of things do you do which make your mom or dad angry?
- What about God? What sorts of things do we do which displease God?
- Can you think of any Bible stories that tell about people making bad choices?
- How do we know that God still loves us, no matter what?
This review is written by regular contributor Beth Lyon-Suhring.
Love You When You Whine by Storypath is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.