Despicable Me: Sleepy Kittens Book Review & Awesome Giveaway

This might be a first! The book Sleepy Kittens, labeled "as seen in the film Despicable Me from Universal Pictures," is a movie tie-in title that is really and truly featured in the actual movie. Talk about amazing and clever product placement. I love it when characters in a movie read or discuss books. When Meg Ryan's character mentioned Noel Streatfeild's children's books in You've Got Mail, I sure wanted to read them all. I bet I wasn't the only one. The 3-D, animated comedy Despicable Me releases in theaters today (July 9th) and, yes, the board book with cute finger puppet kittens is in the movie.

Three little kittens loved to play. They had fun in the sun all day. Then their mother came out and said, "Time for kittens to go to bed!"

Sleepy Kittens (Despicable Me) by Cinco Paul, Ken Daurio, Illustrated by Eric Guillon; LB Kids (May 2010); ISBN 9780316083812; 10 pages; Board Book
Book Source: Review copy provided by publisher

In Sleepy Kittens, a pink mama cat announces that it is bedtime for her three chubby little kittens. The kittens have other ideas and try their best to stall the inevitable. Smart mama cat, not to be outdone, has a few tricks up her pink paw and lovingly soothes them to sleep. The short text is written in rhyming verse.

If you watch this movie trailer, about two minutes into the video the Sleepy Kitten book appears. Gru, the villain, is reading the book to the orphaned girls. Ok, ok...so the actual book isn't exactly the same as the one in the movie but it is pretty darn close. The three finger puppets are there but you don't manipulate them through holes like Gru does. And, the text isn't exactly the same either but still it is pretty cool that kids can actually read the story for themselves and interact with the finger puppet kittens. Kids can even make the kittens drink the milk out of the milk bowl, just like in the movie. My kindergarten-aged daughter thought the book was fun to play with and even made up her own story while operating the puppets. My toddler son isn't able to manipulate the puppets as well as his older sister but seems amused by this novelty. One thing I noticed -- the roly-poly kittens have such short little legs I'm surprised they can do anything but sleep! The three finger puppets, made out of flat, felt-like material, are glued into the back cover and cannot be removed.

Other LB Kids Despicable Me movie tie-in books include My Dad the Super Villain (picture book), The World's Greatest Villain (picture book) and Despicable Me: The Junior Novel.

Studded with stars like Steve Carell, Jason Segel, Miranda Cosgrove, Julie Andrews, Despicable Me sounds like it is going to be plenty humorous. I'm not so sure I'm on board with the funny name, but I guess it kind of grows on you. I haven't seen the movie yet, but from what I can gather from the production notes, here's the basic plot: Gru is a super-villain of the most wicked, evil sort. He even has plans to steal the moon with the help of his little, yellow minions. He meets his match when three little orphaned girls end up at his door.


Related links:
Despicable Me Books: http://www.despicablemebooks.com
Official Movie Site: www.despicable.me
Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/DespicableMe
Twitter: @universalpics
Movie Trailer #6: http://www.youtube.com/despicablememovie#p/u/4/tikthjwNUBw

Thanks to LB Kids and Universal Pictures, Brimful Curiosities' readers can enter to win a Despicable Me Book Prize Pack.

One (1) Winner will receive:

* Sleepy Kittens
* My Dad the Super Villain
* The World’s Greatest Villain
* Despicable Me: The Junior Novel
* Despicable Me T-shirt
* Despicable Me pencil

To enter, leave any comment relevant to this post. Or, just for fun, on the topic of product placement and books in movies, have you ever read a book after seeing a character reading or discussing it in a movie?

• For contact purposes, if you are a non-blogger or your email is not accessible in your blog profile, please leave a valid email address within the comment section.
• Contest is open to US Only
• Contest ends on Monday, July 26th, 2010 at 11:59 PM CST.
• Winner will be chosen at random and sent an email notification.

Three ways to gain extra entries (Maximum total entries is 4; please leave a separate comment for each entry):
1st extra entry: Blog about this contest then post your link in the comment section.
2nd extra entry: Follow me on twitter (iambrimful) and tweet about the contest.
3rd extra entry: Follow Me! or subscribe by email or RSS reader


Thanks to Universal Pictures and LB Kids for providing a copy of Sleepy Kittens for review. I am an Amazon affiliate and may receive a very small commission for products purchased through my Amazon links. (View my full disclosure statement for more information about my reviews.)