BIJOU, BONBON AND BEAU

A desperate, pregnant mother cat seeks shelter in a Parisian theater, just in time to provide a home for her kittens. There the ballerinas fall in love with the little feline fuzzballs, calling the mother Marmalade and her kittens Bijou, Bonbon, and Beau. When the stage manager threatens to throw the cats out, the dancers defend them utterly. All the while, an artist (Degas) quietly sketches what he sees. When opening night arrives, the kittens decide to participate, climbing the dancers’ stockings, chasing their toes, and even cavorting across Degas’s drawing board. The audience loves it, and the kittens become a mainstay of the ballet. The cotton-candy, tutu pastels of Wu’s palette create the mood of Degas’s work without copying it. Brief biographical information on the artist accompanies an elegant reproduction of his work, The Rehearsal on Stage, where readers are urged to hunt for alleged evidence of the kittens’ joyful rampage across the artist’s page. (Picture book. 5-10)