Purr-fectly Perfect

Our furry feline friends have personalities as distinctive as our own.  They can be unpredictable and creatures of habit at the same time. We find ourselves embracing them despite these contrasting characteristics.  Unlike most of their canine counterparts, sometimes it can take years before they allow themselves to be a part of a human family.

It takes a special kind of person to persist in loving a cat when they have not thought of loving anyone at all.  Negative Cat (Nancy Paulsen Books, an imprint of Penguin Random House LLC, August 31, 2021) written and illustrated by Sophie Blackall is about a persistent boy.  The cat he loves is also persistent, but not in the way the boy desires.  This is their story, a "tail" waiting to be told.

On Day 427 of asking for a cat . . .

a miracle happened.  The boy's parents said yes!  There were conditions attached to this affirmative response.  The least appealing was the necessity of reading for twenty minutes every day.  

Reading was not this child's favorite thing to do.  He read slowly.  He had to read aloud.

At the shelter, it was hard to select only one cat, but he did.  He named the cat Maxmilian Augustus Xavier, Max.  At home, the cat paid no attention to the comforts and treats, and toys supplied by the boy.  This cat stared at the wall.  This cat was negative in every respect.

In return for kindness by family members, the cat did undesirable things like putting its tail in the butter and eating flowers.  The parents and older sister were ready to return it to the shelter.  A call was placed.

In a last-ditch effort to keep this cat he loved, the boy scrambled to do some of the items on the conditions' list, most importantly, his least popular.  And another miracle happened.  In fact, the boy's classmates joined him at the shelter once a week, expanding on that unexpected revelation.

What readers might not grasp at the beginning, but is our first clue about this boy's nature, is the fact he asked for a cat for 427 days.  Sophie Blackall wants us to know the significance to this child of having a cat.  She wants us to understand his tenacity.  This builds page by page through first-person narrative and dialogue, past and present, until the joyful addition to their family.  When it looks as though the joy is fleeting, we are once again reminded of this boy's deepest desire to do anything to keep Max.  At this point you don't know whether to sigh or cheer, so you do a little bit of both.  Here is a passage.

The next day, I surprise Max with a toy mouse.

(He is not surprised.)

I tickle him with a feather.  (He is not ticklish.)

I tell him all my best jokes.  (He doesn't even smile.)

The wide band of blue on the spine complements the shades of orange (and tan) used in the canvas, wall, flooring and cat on the front, right, and back, left, of the open book case.  In looking at the front, you wonder what would prompt a cat to stare at a wall.  On the back, we are given a hint of things to come.  Text above and below a circular image is that usually found on the front and back flaps of a dust jacket.  It introduces us to the book and to author illustrator, Sophie Blackall.  In that illustration the boy is writing on his laptop as Max watches, seated in the boy's lap.

On the opening and closing endpapers in blue and white is an array of childlike drawings of cats of all shapes and sizes.  The cats and their features are outlines.  The canvas is polka dotted.    On the title page the tiny mouse toy is placed between the text.  The publication information and dedication page are opposite the first page.  In fact, the illustration on the first page is the right side of a double-page picture.  

The illustrations in this book were created digitally and superimposed on the reverse side of vintage wallpaper salvaged from a falling-down house.

Readers, with every page turn, will stop to notice the details. These details are full of humor.  It isn't that the boy simply begs for a cat with drawings, but he makes a cat-shaped snowman in winter.  He makes cat ears on his head from soap during his bath.  He has his mother read him Brendan Wenzel's They All Saw A Cat.  And . . . he reads Max one of the oldest picture books in the United States still in print, Wanda Gag's Newbery Honor book, Millions Of Cats.

The perspectives in the visuals and their sizes shift to convey emotions and enhance the pacing.  There are groups of small insets, double-page pictures, single-page images, horizontal panels, and diagonal panels.  The dialogue is shown in longer, loose speech balloons.

One of my many, many favorite illustrations is a double-page picture of the boy celebrating the yes answer from his parents.  On the pale orange background is a green-striped oval rug.  He is kneeling on the rug on his knees supported by his hands.  His head is back, his eyes are closed, and he is laughing as he kicks up his heels.  He repeats three times:

I'm getting a cat!

Look no further than Negative Cat written and illustrated by Sophie Blackall for the ultimate silver-lining title.  With a marvelous blend of images and text, page turn by page turn, when hope is fading, it rises again through the magic of reading aloud.  I highly recommend this book for both your professional and personal collections.

To learn more about Sophie Blackall and her other work, please access her website by following the link attached to her name.  Sophie Blackall has accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  Sophie Blackall writes a guest post about this book at the Nerdy Book Club.  Sophie Blackall is interviewed about this book, others, and her work at The Children's Book Review.  At the publisher's website you can view interior images.

We know when we look at the world through the eyes of another, the world can become completely altered.  Two or more individuals can be looking at the same space and focus on entirely different elements.  This is how our perceptions of our immediate and extended surroundings increase and our imaginations are keener.  Inside Cat (Chronicle Books, October 12, 2021) written and illustrated by Brendan Wenzel presents a cat's eye view as it moves throughout its building.  This cat believes what it sees, floor by floor, is a realistic representation of the outside.

Inside Cat knows many windows,

finds a view wherever it goes.

This Inside Cat sees portions of the outside.  It looks through windows of all shapes and sizes, geometric designs on walls, floors, and ceilings.  Some windows stand alone, and others share a space next to each other.

Each window is a chance to pause and ponder.  Each display a bit different, look by look.  The glass in these windows is clean, dirty, bubbled, and broken.  It is shuttered.  It is open.

Some things seen through the windows remain the same, frozen.  Other things are in motion.  Is it a group of on-your-mark-get-set-go birds or a swarm swooping through the city?  It that an enormous snack or the display on an ice cream truck?

As Inside Cat moves from floor to floor, there are small treats and short snoozes to take.  Now wide awake, Inside Cat maintains it knows people up and down and all around.  It maintains it knows what it sees, and smells is true.  Inside Cat is certain it knows everything, until . . .

The use of language in this book by Brendan Wenzel is superb.  It is written like a poem with the first sentence and another three sentences bookending the center portions.  There is beautiful alliteration and rhyming.  The last sentence at the beginning of a new portion, a group of words, leads to multiple examples of that statement.  With every reading, the text becomes more melodic.  Here is a passage.

Glass all dusty.

Glass so streaky.

Glass gone gloomy.

Glass way freaky.  . . .

View to view,

floor to floor.

Knows the windows,

walls, and more.

Upon opening the dust jacket, flap edge to flap edge, the entire body of Inside Cat is supplied to readers.  The body and tail extend to the left of the spine.  The large eyes on the front draw our focus to the central theme of the narrative.  What is this cat's point of view?  The white of the cat's eyes and the title text are varnished.

A rusty red is the canvas on the book case.  Large portions of the front, right, and back, left, are filled with the cat's home.  It appears to be a unique building in the shape of a cat.  Inside Cat is peering through one of the windows, a cat's eye.  This is wonderfully ingenious.

On the opening endpapers the background shifts to a midnight blue.  The house is now shown in blue and white soft, flowing lines giving us the inside view of all the rooms.  In this perspective wherever there is a window, we see the outside.  The cat is still looking out the same window, although its eyes have shifted to the side.

With a page turn, we are on the double-page image for the title page.  Inside Cat is looking outside at a sunny floral depiction.  (I will say nothing about the closing endpapers which hold the publication and dedication information.  Everyone needs to see that for the first time without explanation.)

These images by Brendan Wenzel 

were rendered in a variety of media, including cut paper, colored pencil, oil pastels, marker, and the computer.

Every picture invites you to stop and stare as does the cat.  The inside views are in blue and white, faint outlines like you would expect to see on an architect's drafting board.  The outside views are in full color.  In each setting, inside and outside, they are bursting with items revealing the lives of the human dwellers or the cat's imagination toward the conclusion.  Readers will be looking in each visual for the tiny creature which seems to follow Inside Cat, at a discreet distance, of course.  Inside Cat is drawn with loose lines indicative of a careful, curious explorer.  Though Inside Cat is indeed careful and curious, it is also highly animated.

One of my many favorite pictures, two-page as they all are, is for the text above-noted.  Inside Cat is portrayed in five different poses at four windows.  The first one is so dirty Inside Cat's paws are covered with dirt, leaving behind paw prints on the steps, ottoman, the next window and the wall.  The third window is covered in dark paper to fashion a Halloween scene, one corner turned down to show the world outside.  The final window is an abstract, stained-glass of the sun in pastel colors with bright orange.  In this visual, it is as if Inside Cat is strolling through an art gallery.

No matter how often you read Inside Cat written and illustrated by Brendan Wenzel, you will find something new each time.  The words will sing to you and the illustrations are like a map leading you to an amazing discovery.  I can't imagine a personal or professional collection without this title.

By following the link attached to Brendan Wenzel's name you can access his website to learn more about him and his work.  Brendan Wenzel has accounts on Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter.  At the publisher's website you can view interior images.  At librarian, guest lecturer at Rutgers, and writer John Schumacher's Watch. Connect. Read., Brendan Wenzel talks about this book.