MY CAT JACK
by Patricia Casey & illustrated by Patricia Casey
A delightful romp through a typical day with the narrator's black-and-white cat, Jack, who is shown as he yawns, stretches up, stretches down, scratches, curls, plays, laps, pounces, purrs, and washes. The language employed by Casey (Cluck Cluck, 1988), while simple and direct, nevertheless has a lyrical lilt that aspires to a kind of poetry. But there's nothing highbrow about this engaging account of a feline's day; the immediacy of the action and style will appeal to even very young readers. The illustrations, for which Casey prepared by spending months sketching at an animal shelter, are superb. Crayon drawings that have been colored with gouache, they are possessed of a lithe, confident line and are filled with a whimsical kind of humor. The best of them attain the sort of dignity and charm seen in the most venerated Asian animal paintings. Altogether, words and pictures come together to create a wonderful book for wee cat lovers. (Fiction/Picture book. 2+)