Where's My Cat?

Before the titular cat makes its eventual appearance in this drawing game turned picture book, readers are treated to an oddball menagerie fashioned from quotidian objects, thanks to Chwast's (Arno and the MiniMachine) visual sleights of hand. Following an opening page that reads "What's This?" in eclectic typography that vibrates with energy, the first spread queries "Saw and pickle?" as a line drawing of the two objects appears on the opposing page. A page turn later, readers see the reveal: the pickle has sprouted webbed feet and a lower jaw, and the saw has transitioned into a toothy mouth, making a "Crocodile!" Seven more offbeat objects-to-animals follow, with a few deft, comic lines adding personality: a gray sock gains tiny eager eyes, tusks, feet, and a snout, turning into a winningly portrayed walrus. But where is that cat? At long last, a pair of unassuming open scissors are revealed to be the eyes, nose, and mouth of a jet-black feline. The everyday world will look a little different after readers close this book--the reward of spending time in the company of an imaginative talent. Ages 2-5. (Mar.)

K-Gr 2--Playfully exercising the imagination and having fun with shape associations, Chwast transforms seemingly random objects into animals with a page turn. Thus a saw and pickle become, respectively, the jaw and body of a crocodile. In one transformation, a tennis racket turns into a turtle with the addition of a head and feet around the rim, and in another, an old gray sock makes an appropriately rumpled walrus. The magic continues until, at last, a pair of scissors ends up as the eyes and nose of that elusive titular cat. The pictures and brightly colored, hand-lettered labels are drawn in such an offhand way that even children with rudimentary artistic skills will feel encouraged to continue the game with any items that happen to catch their eyes. There is story time potential here, too, in conjunction with other challenges to perspective or expectations like (in a classic vein) Tana Hoban's Look Book or Josse Goffin's Oh! VERDICT A clever way to encourage budding artists to look for visual correspondences in the world around them.--John Peters