'So, What's It Like To Be a Cat?' by Karla Kuskin, Illustrated by Betsy Lewin

Kuskin, Karla.  2005.  So, What's It Like To Be a Cat?.  Ill. by Betsy Lewin.  New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers.  ISBN 0689847335.

Anyone who has ever owned a cat might wonder what goes on in their furry heads.  Why do they play with the plastic ring from a gallon carton of milk when you've gone to the trouble to purchase lovely toys for them?  Why won't they sleep in that perfectly comfortable and warm cat bed?  Why do they have to jump into that basket of laundry that you just took out of the dryer?  All those questions and more could be answered in So, What's It Like To Be a Cat?

The intrepid Mr. Bean (my cat)
photo by L. Propes

The book begins on the title page.  A chalkboard contains an assignment -- an interview.  As you turn the page, you see an eager boy, showing a slightly reserved grey-and-white cat to a chair.  The next shows the boy in his own chair, holding a pencil and notebook, ready to take down his subject's answers.  The book proceeds to ask questions any human might want to know of their cat.  There are times where the cat offers direct answers, but in keeping with the attitude of a cat, chooses at times to prance around the question.  In regards to our feline's humans, she doesn't hold back, telling her interviewer just what she thinks of them.  The reader is left with the impression that this particular cat does not wish to be anything else than what she is, and she is absolutely fine with that, thank you.

The publisher has chosen to use a different typeface for the interviewer and the cat, which could offer young readers a nice visual cue as to which character is speaking.  The interviewer's typeface is a childlike scrawl, while the cat's resembles an antique typewriter -- almost bordering on fussy.  Kuskin's text rhymes, but with no regular rhyme scheme.  This does not detract from the overall effect.  Most of the text is in rhymed couplets, interrupted by a line that doesn't rhyme with anything else in the stanza.  Sometimes the couplet spills from one stanza to another.  It gives the book a rollicking rhythm that is great fun to read aloud.  The style differs between our young interviewer and his subject.  The interview's style of speaking is appropriate for a child of his age, and the cat's speech is much more formal and slightly haughty.  Some of the vocabulary might be a bit above the intended audience, but with a little forethought, a reader-performer could produce some props that will help the audience understand the words in context.

Lewin's watercolor paintings are presented on a plain white background.  All the better to keep the focus on the interplay of the text and the illustrations.  The primary focus of this story is the interview between the cat and the young boy, and there are no backgrounds to offer distractions from the artwork and story.  Lewin imbues the cat with eloquent facial expressions that evoke a range of emotions from thoughtful consideration to regal disdain.  Lewin even makes sure that the pupils of the cat's eyes change size when she's drawn in a nighttime setting.  While most of the illustrations are static, Lewin provides a pictorial representation of the cat's replies to the boy, putting the cat into situations and poses any cat owner would recognize.  The pages where Lewin puts the cat into motion paint the cat in monochrome colors, with multiple renditions of the cat in some sort of motion dancing, prancing, and leaping across the page.  Other pages with motion use techniques familiar to anyone who grew up on a steady diet of Bugs Bunny -- the parts of the cat that move are drawn multiple times to depict the motions within a single illustration.  Lewin also places the cat into situations familiar to all pet owners: held upside down by a small child (with very grumpy expression on the cat's face); winding around her human's legs while she's trying to practice ballet; sleeping on another person's chest (and keeping the parent awake!); and even investigating one of the humans after a shower.  Keep an eye out for the alarmed mouse in the corner of a page asking if the cat eats Bits O' Mouse for breakfast (Kuskin 2005).  It is a nice, almost throwaway, addition to a question about a cat's eating habits.

Teachers could use this book as a way to introduce children to the idea of performing an interview, then either have them interview an actual person, character from another book, or imagine what their own dog, cat, or other pet might have to say.  A teacher could easily partner with an art teacher and have the class make a variety of cat-themed crafts that can complement the story quite easily.  Teachers could even use this to introduce a unit about cats in general.  There really are quite a few possibilities.

*********************************************************************************

"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... The illustrations are set against crisp white backgrounds and each page offers a diverse layout that enhances the cadence of the poem...  A great choice for reading aloud." -- Carolyn Ward, School Library Journal, 2005

"The inquisitive boy in this rhyming tale decides to go right to the source... and, fortunately for him, finds that the interviewee is happy to share the secrets of her catlike ways.  This playful text has heaps of conceptual appeal; anyone who has ever spent time around animals will readily identify with the desire to know what goes on in their heads, and the Q&A format of the story mischievously plays on that desire." -- Hope Morrison, Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, 2005

*********************************************************************************

Works Cited:

Kuskin, Karla. 2005. So, what's it like to be a cat?. Ill. by Betsy Lewin. New York: Antheneum Books for Young Readers.

Morrison, Hope. 2005. So, what's it like to be a cat?. Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books 59 (1) (09): 25-, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=brd&AN=510451039&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

Ward, Carolyn. 2005. So, what's it like to be a cat? School Library Journal 51 (8) (08): 99-, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=brd&AN=518482679&site=ehost-live&scope=site.

'This Is Not My Hat' by Jon Klassen

Klassen, Jon.  2012.  This Is Not My Hat.  Ill. by Jon Klassen.  Somerville: Candlewick Press.  ISBN 9780763655990.

Photo by: L. Propes

This Is Not My Hat is narrated by a cheeky small fish, who unabashedly admits he's stolen a hat from a much larger fish on the grounds that 1) the hat is too small for its owner, and 2) the owner won't miss it at all.  No sir.  Not at all.  The story starts with a bang as the fish, "wastes no time or words in confessing his crime..." (Janssen 2012).  Of course the big fish does notice his beloved hat is gone and swims off in pursuit.  The smaller fish is blithely unconcerned that he might get caught, certain that he will manage to swim to a place, "where the plants grow big and tall and close together" (Klassen 2012).  A place where he can hide and the larger fish cannot possibly hope to find him.

This 2013 Caldecott Award winner would be a perfect addition for any classroom library to teach a range of subjects from prediction to irony.  The sentences are set above the illustrations, offering a sly counterpoint to one another.  The illustrations of the big fish's reactions of discovering his hat is missing directly contradict the narration of the small fish.  Younger children will enjoy the on-the-edge-of-the-seat quality of the chase and the two-page "silent" illustrated spread that comes after  the larger fish has indeed caught up with the narrator that leaves the audience wondering if the bigger fish did catch the smaller fish, and if so, just exactly what happens.  Klassen does resolve the story, but manages to leave a small opening in the ending where a teacher can ask the class to imagine how the story is resolved.  The action rises gently as the smaller fish makes one pronouncement, followed by a contingency plan that pushes the plot forward.  The climax and resolution follow hard upon one another, but because Klassen chooses not to narrate either of those parts of the plot development, they float to the reader/audience as if on an ocean's current.

Klassen's illustrations are rendered in ink, then scanned into a computer, where he manipulates the images with Photoshop (Danielson, 2011).  The illustrations for This Is Not My Hat are fairly monochromatic greys and browns against a black background.  It sounds like it might not work, but it does.  The colors of the fish and vines jump off the page.  The illustrations are also somewhat flat (more in the manner of two-dimensional, rather than lack of vividness) and the effect is rather retro and reminiscent of picture books from an earlier age.  Facial expressions are done with a simple change of an eye, but it speaks volumes.  Klassen judiciously uses air bubbles to evoke the mood of the larger fish (fewer bubbles, the angrier he becomes) and to denote movement (faster movement, more bubbles).  Publishers Weekly said, "Klassen excels at using pictures to tell the parts of the story his unreliable narrators omit or evade" (Publishers Weekly 2012).  

This Is Not My Hat is seen as a sequel of sorts to Klassen's I Want My Hat Back.  (Incidentally, I Want My Hat Back was a Theodore Seuss Geisel finalist in 2012 and won the ALA Notable Books for Children award in 2012 and Publishers Weekly Best Children's Books in 2011.)  The Classroom Bookshelf blog lists activities and lessons using This Is Not My Hat and other picture books for a range of grades from preschool to 8th grade. 

I would highly recommend this book for any classroom, school, or personal library.  Younger children may realize what the smaller fish has done is wrong, and parents could use it as an introduction to discussing the consequences of one's actions to children from a variety of angles.  Even though children's books aren't reqired to be moralistic (Vardell 2008), Klassen manages to convey that no crime goes unpunished without getting preachy or shoving it in the face of his audience.

**********************************************************************************

Works Cited

This is not my hat. 2012. Publishers Weekly 259 (35) (08/27): 74-, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=ccx&AN=79449374&site=ehost-live&scope=site. 

Danielson, Julie. Seven questions over breakfast with jon klassen. 2011 [cited January 23 2014]. Available from http://blaine.org/sevenimpossiblethings/?p=2189. 

Janssen, Carolyn1. 2012. This is not my hat. School Library Journal 58 (9) (09): 116-, http://ezproxy.twu.edu:2048/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=brd&AN=79888301&site=ehost-live&scope=site. 

Klassen, Jon. 2012. This is not my hat. Somerville: Candlewick Press. 

Vardell, Sylvia M. 2008. Children's literature in action: A librarian's guide. Westport: Libraries Unlimited. 

'Kay Thompson's Eloise' by Kay Thompson, illustrated by Hilary Knight

Thompson, Kay.  1955.  Kay Thompson's Eloise.  Ill. by Hilary Knight.  New York: Simon & Schuster Books For Young Readers.  ISBN978671223502.

Kay Thompson's Eloise, more commonly known as simply Eloise, chronicles a day in the life of the eponymous titular character.  Eloise is a six year-old girl that lives in a penthouse at the Plaza Hotel in New York City with her nanny, dog Weenie, and turtle Skipperdee.  Eloise spends her day running around the hotel, stopping in at weddings, meeting rooms, ballrooms, and other areas of the Plaza.

Photo by: L. Propes

Eloise reminds me of animated films and television shows that may not necessarily be for children, despite the format.  A subtitle of the book calls it, "A book for precocious grown-ups about a little girl who lives at the Plaza Hotel".  Children will enjoy the descriptions of Eloise's unfettered adventures in the hotel and the fact that for all the trouble she can cause, Eloise never seems to get into any trouble, nor face any consequences -- truly a child's dream!  Adults might raise a slightly censorious eyebrow at Eloise's need to poke her nose in everybody's business and crash weddings and parties.  As cited in Thompson's obituary, Publishers Weekly in 1957 called Eloise an, "
...overprivileged 6-year-old, the terror of the Hotel Plaza in New York. She is also ill-mannered, ill-tempered and ugly. But she has her charm. She often means well, and her mother neglects her. Even though you know that you would do the same thing if she were yours, you can't help finding this appealing" (Pace 1998).  Even back then, readers were certainly aware of the dichotomy in Eloise's character -- simultaneously wanting to chide Eloise and hug her.

According to a New York Times article, Thompson intended Eloise to be meant for adults, the picture book format notwithstanding (D'Erasmo 2002).  She once even went so far as to re-shelve copies of Eloise from the children's section of a bookstore to the adult fiction section (D'Erasmo 2002).  Children in the 1950s might not have noticed Eloise's absent mother and never-mentioned father, but today's child could make a comment about it.  In her review of The Absolutely Essential Edition of Eloise, Sarah Ferrell commends Thompson for turning the traditional "poor little rich girl" narrative on its head.  There is nothing poor or little about Eloise.

Thompson gives Eloise a voice anyone familiar with a six-year old child will recognize.  It rambles in an unpunctuated, stream-of-consciousness trickle down the page.  Eloise, like most children, makes up words that onomatopoetically describe their actions much more effectively than the usual terms.  She is irreverent, sure of herself, and -- dare I say? -- delightfully imaginative.  All these qualities shine through in Thompson's text and Knight's illustrations.

Knight's drawings depict Eloise as a slightly chubby girl, with flyaway hair and a smile that hovers between a grin of genuine humor and a satisfied smirk.  The drawings are black-and-white with touches of red or pink in the bow in Eloise's hair or the scrawled drawings on her bedroom walls.  The drawings themselves are not detailed to the point of realism, but Knight evokes the opulence of the Plaza by choosing to focus on a few details, like the palm fronds of a cafe, the suggestion of a chandelier in a ballroom, or the windows and frescoes of a room hosting a wedding.  Knight provides a sketch for each of Eloise's adventures, and anything more detailed would detract from the text.  He even allows the reader to view Eloise's imaginative flights of fancy with simple, red outlines of the characters that inhabit Eloise's imagination.

Unlike many children's book authors and illustrators, Thompson and Knight collaborated on this and four additional books: Eloise in Paris, Eloise in Moscow, Eloise at Christmas, and Eloise Takes a Bawth.  If you're willing to part with a significant amount of money, the Plaza Hotel offers Eloise-themed birthday parties and an Eloise-themed suite.

*********************************************************************************
Works Cited:

D'Erasmo, Stacey. Little grown-ups live here. in The New York Times [database online]. 2002 [cited January 14 2014]. Available from http://www.nytimes.com/2002/10/06/magazine/06ELOISE.html?pagewanted=1.

Ferrell, Sarah. Hints from eloise. in The New York Times [database online]. 1999 [cited January 14 2014]. Available from http://www.nytimes.com/books/99/05/16/reviews/990516.16ferrelt.html.

Pace, Eric. Kay thompson, author of 'eloise' books dies. in The New York Times [database online]. 1998 [cited January 14 2014]. Available from http://www.nytimes.com/1998/07/07/arts/kay-thompson-author-of-eloise-books-dies.html.

Welcome to my blog!

Welcome to my blog!

This blog is primarily to publish book reviews for a course on literature for children and young adults, but I imagine from time to time I'll post a musing or scribbling about children's or young adult books in general.

I don't really ever remember consciously dividing books into "kids" or "adult" books.  They were just books.  I spent a few years in the children's area of my local library, but began to branch out before too long.

I don't think you can "outgrow" a book.  (Although parents out there can attest to getting tired of a book!)  I still get a smile out of reading Where the Wild Things Are.  I still have a complete set of Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books.  I read my first set until it fell to pieces.  Literally.  To this day, I have no idea where the cover of my very first copy of Little House on the Prairie is.  I've used children's books as teaching tools (how to take notes) and as the starting point for a lesson in the judicial system (putting the Big Bad Wolf on trial using The True Story of the Three Little Pigs), and as part of a unit on the American Revolution (Can't You Make Them Behave, King George?).

I've always harboured a wish as a history teacher to incorporate more historical fiction as part of our units.  The class could compare the fictionalized version of events and compare/contrast them to what really happened.  You could even use Shakespeare's Henry V and compare Will's version of English history to what actually happened.  (Spoiler alert: Henry did not propose to Katherine mere days after the Battle of Agincourt.)  There are so many options available for so many reading levels.  Maybe one day.

Sometimes I like to pull a picture book off the shelf and examine the artwork.  The variety of techniques used is astounding.  A book with spare black-and-white line drawings is no less beautiful than pictures with richly detailed and vibrantly hued paintings in its simplicity.  The beauty lies in the details the illustrator has chosen to share with us, letting us fill in the blanks with our imaginations.

We should take time in schools to teach kids to learn to read strictly for the pleasure of settling down with an old friend, or finding a a brand-new one.  Testing isn't teaching, and reading a sample standardized test excerpt isn't going to make a child want to run to the library and find out what happens in the next book.

Until next time...