'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.

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"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

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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.