THE CAT CAME BACK
adapted by Bill Slavin & illustrated by Bill Slavin
A merry song about a man who tries various extreme measures to get rid of his cat, which always manages to reappear: ``Mister Johnson gave the cat/to a man in a balloon,/He said, `Please take this cat/and leave it on the moon.'/The balloon came down about/ ninety miles away,/Where the man is now, well,/no one wants to say./And the cat came back/the very next day....'' In Slavin's energetic watercolors, the balloonist's suspenders are caught high on a tree branch, while the cat emerges from a futuristic space vehicle with a wedge of ``Moon Cheese.'' Other visual extensions of the lilting verse are equally lively and amusing; whether by stagecoach or taxi, puss always makes it back to her favorite perch as a couch potato with plenty of munchies. Catchy tune included; good fun. (Picture book. 3-8)