Me And My Cat?

Late one night, an old lady in a pointed hat climbs through the window into Nicholas' bedroom. She brandishes her broom, fires out some words, and then leaves as abruptly as she came. It's puzzling at the time, but not nearly as puzzling as what happens the next day! Winner of the Smarties Silver Award, this is one of Satoshi Kitamura's funniest and most popular picture books. Editorial Reviews From Publishers Weekly Although not as unpredictable as his hard-boiled Sheep in Wolves' Clothing, this latest by Kitamura spotlights an offbeat sense of humor and a flair for comic-book layout. At first, it appears as though a dark-haired boy, Nicholas, narrates the story, while his yellow cat sits quietly in the foreground. But at breakfast, Nicholas buries his head in a cat-food dish until his mother "carr[ies] me off to catch the school bus. I had gone... but I was still here." Only then does Nicholas realize that he and his cat have exchanged physical identities. The "real" Nicholas, in the cat's body, spends the day accidentally toppling furniture and battling the tomcats next door. "Life was as complicated and tough as it was for humans," he discovers. Kitamura devotes several amusing spreads to imagining how a cat would inhabit a human body and vice versa. He contains these chaotic scenes in a tense, tightly controlled black-ink line and tints them with lush midnight-violet, fern-green and golden-ochre watercolors. "An old lady in a pointed hat" solves the dilemma in a conventional way, but the tale provides entertainmentAparticularly on the repetitive panels in which the boy wears a cat's impenetrable, miffed expression. Ages 4-8. Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title. From School Library Journal Kindergarten-Grade 3-Prior to the title page, an old lady with a broom and a pointy black hat is pictured crawling through a boy's window at night. The caption explains that she "brandished her broom at me and fired out some words. Then she left without saying goodbye-." The next day, Nicholas discovers that he has switched bodies with his cat Leonardo. What results is a humorous set of learning experiences about the life of a cat and, for poor Leonardo, the life of a boy. By the time the old woman returns the next night-"Sorry, love. I got the wrong address"-both victims, as well as the protagonist's frazzled mother, are anxious to return to normal. The twist on the last page is wickedly delightful, as are the expressive pen-and-ink and watercolor illustrations. Facial expressions speak volumes, and the sense of kinetic movement and moments caught in a series of "snapshots" (on two consecutive spreads) will pull in the most diffident listeners. The high humor is infectious and the entire clever premise is well executed. Use this title with David Small's Imogene's Antlers (Crown, 1988) or William Joyce's George Shrinks (HarperCollins, 1985) for wonderful stories about strange transformations. Ann Welton, Terminal Park Elementary School, Auburn, WA Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.