Saturday, June 10, 2017

Matilda's Cat

Matilda's Cat. Emily Gravett. 2012. 26 pages. [Source: Library]

First sentence: Matilda's cat likes playing with wool, playing with wool, boxes, playing with wool, boxes and riding bikes!

Premise/plot: In this delightful picture book readers meet Matilda and her cat. Matilda, the heroine, is dressed as a cat. She is trying to play WITH her cat. She's brainstorming constantly. What should we do now? How can we have fun together? How about this? How about that? The truth is most of what Matilda tries to get her cat to do, most of what Matilda says her cat likes...is not really true. But all is not lost. Matilda's cat does love something very much: MATILDA.

My thoughts: I really enjoyed this one. It's very expressive and creative. I loved the spread, "Matilda's cat likes drawing." Readers see Matilda sprawled out on the floor, surrounded by colored pencils, happily drawing. She's drawing a cat of course. But it's the expression on the cat's face that is almost priceless. It's also super-super cute to see all the kid-drawn art. Like there's one of Matilda's drawings that take THREE pieces of paper. The cat is knitting a sweater for Matilda. One of the sleeves covers three pieces of paper. If you look closely, Matilda's art reveals how the earlier activities should have gone. You see Matilda and the cat HAPPILY playing in boxes side by side. You see the cat bravely fighting a dragon. (Just the page before the text reads, "and fighting foes!") The picture of the tea party is adorable. As is the bicycle riding picture. And it is NOT easy to draw a bicycle. I think the book perfectly illustrates that our own interests sometimes dictate a little too much what we like to do with friends. Of course, the more obvious conclusion is that cats will be cats will be cats. And that you can't make a cat do something a cat doesn't want to do.

Another spread I really love is when Matilda tries to read a bedtime story to her cat. Her choice: Emily Gravett's DOGS. The cat REALLY, REALLY, REALLY doesn't want to do that!!!

Text: 5 out of 5
Illustrations: 5 out of 5
Total: 10 out of 10


© 2017 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews

2 comments:

Xavier said...

An captivating story

Joy Weese Moll said...

This sounds like so much fun! I love your descriptions.