Mr. Whiskers has never received a single Valentine. Maggie is concerned, but Grandmother doesn't have time to talk about it. A few days later, Mr. Whiskers is aghast to discover someone has sent him a Valentine. Who could have done that? In a strange coincidence, a lady in a green coat is asking around town about Mr. Whiskers. What could she want? Now Mr. Whiskers concerned. Armed with a heart-shaped box of chocolates, Mr. Whiskers makes his way to Maggie's house where he's pleasantly surprised.

The Bottom Line: As with Cranberry Thanksgiving, this book comes with a recipe. To read the complete review including taste test, please visit the Mini Book Bytes Book Review Blog. ( )

Salty old sea captain Mr. Whiskers gets a shock when, after commenting to his friends Maggie and her grandmother that he had never received a Valentine, he begins to be inundated with the sweet little missives. Embarrassed at the attention, he becomes alarmed when he also hears that a mysterious lady in green is asking all over town for him. Is Mr. Whiskers being "hunted?" Who is his secret admirer...?

Originally published in 1986, Cranberry Valentine is the fifth title in Wende and Harry Devlin's series of delightful holiday picture-books set in a rural New England town. Despite that, it is only the second of the books I have read, following upon Cranberry Thanksgiving. I'm glad I was able to track it down, as I found it absolutely charming! Mr. Whiskers' chagrin is so sweet, the sense of warmth and community friendship so heartwarming, and the story overall so amusing, that I read the entire thing with pleasure. The accompanying watercolor illustrations capture the humor and heart of the tale perfectly. I'm happy to have read a second in this wonderful collection, and hope to track down more over time! Recommended to anyone looking for wonderful, heartwarming Valentine's Day stories for the picture-book set. ( )

The story is just sort of dumb with a reliance on silly misunderstandings, but the heavily cross-hatched art is rather fascinating. ( )

When Maggie is making valentines for her friends at schools, Mr. Whiskers notes that he's never received a valentine. Soon, anonymous valentines start appearing for him and he is worried about their origin.

This book is the fifth book in a series about the fictional town of Cranberryport. There is apparently an assumption that the reader will have knowledge of those other books before starting this one, so Cranberry Valentine begins without any explanation of who these characters are or what their personalities are like. Therefore, characters act in ways that do not necessarily make sense. For instance, Mr. Whiskers bemoans his lack of valentines with one breath and with the next is embarrassed to be the recipient of anonymous valentines. Does this have to do with the fact that he is seemingly a hardened veteran sailor? Perhaps. Or perhaps the authors never bothered to come up with a rationale for his actions.

At any rate, I found this story to be kind of weak and I'm not really sure what exactly children are supposed to take away from it. Not that everything has to have a moral, but this book just seems to send a odd message to me. Someone does something nice for Mr. Whiskers and his first reaction is to try and hide from them? As a Valentine's Day story, it doesn't actually explain much about the holiday, and there are definitely better valentine-themed books out there.

In addition, the illustrations are just so-so and don't seem to have aged well. All in all, I think this book might be interesting to those invested in the Cranberryport series or for older readers who are voracious and perhaps like a simpler, old-timey feeling book. It was definitely way too advanced in concept and language for my toddler class, so I used the book simply as a prop to tell my own version of the story. After reading this title, I don't feel inclined to go pick up any more of the books in this series. ( )