Kitten's First Full Moon is an American children's picture book written and illustrated by Kevin Henkes. Published in 2004, the book tells the story of a kitten who thinks the moon is a bowl of milk and tries many different attempts to drink it. Henkes won the 2005 Caldecott Medal for his illustrations. The book is in black and white and typeset in sans-serif. The idea came from a line in another book by Henkes, "The cat thought the moon was a bowl of milk." Henkes gradually expanded on that for Kitten's First Full Moon.

Plot

One night, a hungry female kitten sees a full moon for the first time and thinks it's a bowl of milk. She stretches up to get it, only to get a bug on her tongue and fall down the stairs. She then chases it but doesn't get closer, so she climbs a tall tree, but still couldn't reach it. Kitten becomes scared but then sees the pond and thinks it's another bowl of milk, so she climbs down from the tree and jumps in. A tired, unhappy and hungry kitten returns home to find a bowl of milk sitting on the porch waiting for her, and a lucky kitten goes to sleep.

Awards and honors

In 2017, the American Booksellers Association inducted Kitten's First Full Moon into their Picture Book Hall of Fame.