So, What's It Like to Be a Cat?

PreS-Gr 3 -Two award winners team up to explore playfully the essence of being a cat. The framework of an interview between a boy and a feline allows for a series of skillfully constructed calls and responses. For example, the youngster asks, -Do you have a kitty bed/with your picture at the head? - and his subject replies, -I do "not" have a kitty bed/to rest my kitty tail and head./I'd rather/sleep most anywhere/that's warm and soft: /a couch, /a chair, /a sleeping loft; /I'll curl up there. - Within strong black lines, the loosely composed watercolor cartoons perfectly capture the range of expressions, postures, and mischievous ways of cats. The illustrations are set against crisp white backgrounds and each page offers a diverse layout that enhances the cadence of the poem. This inextricable interplay of art and text works harmoniously to provide a delightful portrait of the capricious nature of felines. A great choice for reading aloud." -Caroline Ward, The Ferguson Library, Stamford, CT" Copyright 2005 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Lewin's (Cat Count) title page illustration cleverly makes clear the premise of Kuskin's (Toots the Cat, reviewed above) playful poem by featuring an announcement on a schoolroom blackboard: "Today's Assignment: An Interview." A boy sits in a pupil's wooden chair with paper and pencil while a gray cat reclines in a director's chair, as if she were the prized guest of a late night show. "So, what's it like to be a cat?" asks the red-haired boy. "I'm very glad you asked me that," answers the yellow-eyed feline, and she launches into a description of her habits ("slipping out on silent feet, / I search for something nice to eat") and the differences between cats and other creatures. The boy's questions punctuate his subject's self-centered riffs about where she sleeps and demonstrations of how well she can leap. Lewin's fetchingly feline black-lined watercolors on stark white pages model how the pet can "bounce and pounce/ and slide and sally, / rush and run/ and twirl and spring" until she literally knocks her interviewer off his chair. The furry star is fittingly egotistical and arch, whimsical and proud. At times, the rhyming text seems a tad formal for a conversation, but throughout Lewin underscores the humor inherent in Kuskin's depiction of a cat's narcissistic existence, and the black-lined gray heroine exhibits all that a feline should be--"Meow. And how." Ages 3-8. (June) Copyright 2005 Publishers Weekly Used with permission.

"Delightfully saucy." -"Horn Book"