I received a copy of this eBook from netGalley for a honest review.

Mila's cat wakes her up as the sun rises but Mila can tell time and knows she still has an hour before they need to get up. Mila continues to tell her cat throughout the day what time it is and when things happen. A good book about telling time.

⏰ Anyone who’s shared their home with a feline friend knows that cats operate on their own schedule, seemingly indifferent to our human concept of time. This charming tale captures that peculiar cat behavior, making it a delightful read for anyone fond of kitties.

⏰ In the narrative, a young girl embarks on a quest to teach her cat the intricacies of timekeeping. However, I noticed a slight hiccup in the book’s design—the illustrations of clocks are quite small, which I feel will be challenging for young readers to compare the lesson to the clock on the page. Some pages even feature digital clocks, which seems counterintuitive to the traditional method of teaching time with analog clocks. This oversight is somewhat puzzling to me and feels like a lost educational opportunity.

⏰ Despite this, the book retains its allure with its cute storyline. It’s a book I’d suggest sharing with your little ones, using it as a springboard to explore clock reading more interactively. You might consider sketching the times mentioned in the book or using a sizeable analog clock for a more hands-on learning experience.

Thank you @Netgalley and North Star Editions/Jolly Fish Press for an eArc of this book, which I have read and reviewed honestly and voluntarily.

This book was delightful to read. It combined a few of my favorite things - cats, kids, boundaries, and learning new things.

What I loved:

🐈‍⬛ How Mila sets clear boundaries with Muffin (yes, Muffin is a cat and they typically set their own rules, but I love that Mila feels confident in her ability to ask for what she wants in a healthy & productive way.

🐈‍⬛ The educational value of telling time is so important to young developing minds. I love any book that reinforces learning for children, especially when we live in such a digital age.

🐈‍⬛ The thinking prompts at the end are wonderful! It helps to create an open dialogue with your kiddo and encourages learning through curiosity.

While super young kiddos may not be able to fully comprehend the act of telling time or how to do so, I think this book is still captivating enough to be fun for even the youngest of readers! My 1 year old loved the pictures - especially Muffin!

Such a sweet children's book with telling time incorporated! As a teacher, my students will really enjoy this book during our time telling unit!

My 8 year old is a huge cat lover and loved this book. We also got to practice telling time and drew out the different clock times on the second time we read the book. It's a fun way to learn about / teach about time.

Rebecca J. Allen’s <i>My Cat Can’t Tell Time (But I Can)</i> is a relatable, fun, and educational read. I’m always quite fond of books that are both engaging and educational and, considering the importance of children’s ability to learn to tell time, I really appreciate the goals of this book.

The story is so relatable, an animal deciding to wake you up well before it’s your time to get up. For some reason, it seems that quite a large number of pets take the first glimpse of sunlight as the indication that everyone must wake up that very moment. I really loved this theme throughout the book, of this little girl doing her best to teach her beloved kitty how to tell time.

There is, however, a lot of negative white space included on the text pages of the book. This isn’t the worst thing ever, but I do think it misses an important opportunity. You see, despite this book being about telling time, there are precious few analog clocks included to actually aid young readers in practicing and learning how to tell what time it is. The vast majority of clocks in the illustration are actually digital!

And since there is so much negative space, I think it’s a complete wasted opportunity to not have analog clocks below all the text, illustrating the exact time that the little girl is telling about. I’m all for keeping the digital clocks and the lovely illustrations, but this book would benefit so much from engaging in active teaching with visuals.

I did love that the times taught were both hours and half hours, but I do think that it should expand to include quarter hours and even what time it is between those. An easy way to do so would be to show her being late to something!

As great as this book is, there’s definitely some room for improvement. But it’s a good starting place.

I like that it has an illustration on every page and that it teaches children to read the clock by also showing throughout the book the analog clock and not just the digital one. The cover is really cute and I love the concept of the cat waking the girl up too early, it reminds me of my own cat. At the end of the book one gets questions to figure out if they understood the lesson or not. Really nice book! I would definitely recommend it to young children!

As a person who always talks to their animals, telling them my current and future plans, this book is a definite read for kids. Not only does it teach how to tell time, but it uses fun ways to learn: talking to her cat and having the main character teach.

It was clever of the illustrator to include both digital and analog clocks as that's what kids see at home and at school. (Fun fact, I queried a friend and he has four analog clocks in his house.)

This book is part of a great series, perfect for elementary school students.

I did receive an advanced copy of this book on Net Galley. Thank you North Star Editions and Jolly Fish Press.

This was a really cute book. I loved the illustrations and the prose is simple so it's great for kids to do some independent reading. Mila helps her cat read time, describing where each hand needs to be while theres a picture showing that exact time which in my opinion is a great way for kids to learn to read time. Explaining and using visuals is a really clever way to teach kids.
Highly recommend

When I read the title, I knew this would be something my son could relate to. My son has his own cat, which is also not good at reading time as he wants to play with my son in the middle of the night and constantly thinks it's meal time. When my son read it with me watching, I noticed the illustrations are super cute, my son kept giggling. I loved that he was able to read the book by himself without too many challenges, this book made reading together more fun! This was a short book but a cute meaning behind it. Great for any kid who has a cat between the ages of 5 to 9 or 10 years old!

I received this ARC from NetGalley and North Star Editions to read/review. All of the statements above are my true opinions after fully reading this book.

This book provides a great way to bring books into math instruction. It helps children understand time to the hour in a sweet way. The book was written on an early elementary reading level that corresponds well with common core time telling standards for similar grades. One thing that would be helpful to include would be more clear images of both digital and analog clocks containing the times mentioned in the text.
As a special education teacher, I will definitely be using this to support my math instruction when introducing time to the hour for my students.

As someone whose cats wake me up every day at 5:30, I'm pretty sure that cats know what time it is, they just don't care what my schedule is. The little girl in this story is sweetly optimistic, because she thinks the cat cares that they can get more sleep.
Telling time is an important skill, though, and she tries to teach her cat. This story is adorable. Thanks to NetGalley for letting me read this

Tired of her cat Muffin waking her up early every morning, Mila tries to teach her how to tell the time. We follow Mia and Muffin throughout their day, learning about their schedule and how to tell the time.

This is a great children’s book to support learning to tell the time. The text is simple and easy to follow, and the repetition of time telling throughout the story is a great way to learn key concepts. The illustrations were colourful and full of life, and Muffin was so darn cute.

I think this is a great way to introduce kids to the concept of telling the time, and knowing when things will happen. The combination of digital and analogue clocks in most pictures were an excellent way for kids to have a reference as they learned. The activities at the end were a wonderful way to prompt reflection and consolidate learning.

Thank you North Star Editions and NetGalley for a complimentary copy of this book. Opinions expressed are my own.