THE CAT, THE OWL AND THE FRESH FISH

This owl and pussycat won’t be sailing away together anytime soon, and readers wouldn’t have it any other way.

Anchored in the center of a small pond sits a rowboat with a basket of fish. When hungry Gray Cat comes along, a nearby owl offers to make a deal: If Gray Cat will only remove the log trapping the owl’s claw, the owl will tell the cat who owns the boat and fish. Alas, the covetous kitty has eyes only for the delicious prize, so the owl starts telling tall tales. When the owl says it saw a rock “moving toward the pond as if it had legs,” Gray Cat decides to use a rock as a steppingstone. Next the owl claims to have seen both a bucket and then a crate moving toward the boat, and Gray Cat uses them to get closer. And when the owl mentions a log, the cat unthinkingly frees the bird’s claw…and finally the true owner of the fish is revealed. Gouache, watercolor, and pencil give this tale, translated from French, a classic, almost old-fashioned look in the vein of the early Little Golden Books, albeit with some heady design choices. Meanwhile, the smartly led storytelling eschews moralizing in favor of letting actions speak for themselves. (This book was reviewed digitally.)

Aesop himself would be pleased with this original parable of brains outsmarting greed.