Cat & Bunny. By Mary
Lundquist. Balzer+Bray/HarperCollins. $17.99.
Bunnies!!! By Kevan
Atteberry. Katherine Tegen/HarperCollins. $12.99.
Glamourpuss. By Sarah Weeks.
Pictures by David Small. Scholastic. $16.99.
What makes Mary Lundquist’s Cat & Bunny so special is not so
much the story, which is a simple one about friendship, but the way Lundquist
chooses to illustrate her theme. Cat and Bunny are really children wearing
animal costumes – no reason for this is given, and none is necessary. They live
amid other children who also wear animal costumes, and each of those other
children is also called by the name of the animal he or she is meant to look
like: Quail, Giraffe and so on. Lundquist carries this theme not only through
the book’s narrative pages but also onto the inside front and back covers,
which show absolutely delightful pictures of kids dressed as, for example, a
bee and a dragon. And the very opening of the book, the two-page spread that
includes the title page, is warmhearted almost beyond words, showing the
various animal-clad kids as newborns, all of them swaddled and sleeping
peacefully, except that Cat and Bunny are wide-eyed and awake. So maybe they aren’t just in costumes after all? Well,
whatever Lundquist intends with these lovely watercolor illustrations, the
effect is magical, making the otherwise rather mundane story very wonderful
indeed. The tale involves the close friendship of Cat and Bunny and the way it
is threatened, or seems to be threatened, when another child asks to play with
them in their favorite game, “the Made-Up Game.” Lundquist explains that “they
played it every day and only they knew the rules to it,” so when Bunny allows
Quail to join in, this seems like a betrayal to Cat, and when still more kids
start playing, Cat is so upset that she runs away – and Bunny does not even
notice. Then Cat finds a kitten, a real one, and the kitten becomes a new
friend, and Cat creates a new Made-Up Game – and then Giraffe asks to join in.
Cat has to think about it, but does decide to say yes – and soon other kids are
playing this game with Cat and the kitten, and then Bunny comes over and asks
to play, and the two friends are back together with a lot of other friends as well. The message about friendship is
soft-pedaled and sweet, but it is the utterly charming illustrations that turn Cat & Bunny into a book to cherish.
The bunnies – four of them –
are quite different in Kevan Atteberry’s very funny and minimally wordy Bunnies!!! These bunnies are plump,
big-nosed, and brightly colored in shades never seen in nature: orange, pink,
blue and green. In fact, they look more like stuffed toys than real bunnies –
and so does the monster stalking them. But he is not stalking for any nefarious
purpose. Yes, he has horns and a huge head that, with no neck, merges into his
stocky body; and he has a big mouth stuffed with teeth; but his tail ends in a
purple puff, and all he wants to do is walk along saying hello to things.
“Hello, tree. Hello, clouds. Hello, butterfly.” And so on. When he sees the
bunnies, however, his exclamation of delight fills two pages and his mouth
opens so wide that it is almost half the size of his whole body. “Bunnies!!
Bunnies!! Bunnies!!” he shouts, chasing the four of them as they, obviously
thinking the worst, flee into the woods. The dejected monster searches for them
but cannot find them anywhere (they are hiding behind trees). Finally,
downcast, he says, “Noooo bunnies,” and goes on his way, still saying hello to
things but no longer with the same happy expression he had before. Then he
spots the bunnies again, and the whole chase-and-hide scene is repeated, except
that the monster is even unhappier when they disappear this time – the
butterfly that lands on one of his horns does not cheer him up at all. The
bunnies now approach silently, tap him gently, and after another huge
“Bunnies!!!” exclamation, everyone dances and leaps and laughs and has a
wonderful time. The end – well, almost…because on the very last page, the
monster spots “Birdies!” And the whole scenario is obviously set to play itself
out again. Atteberry has a wonderful sense of storytelling absurdity that uses
very few words, and his silly drawings are so expressively amusing that the
tale barely needs any narrative at all.
So now that we have seen Cat & Bunny and Bunnies!!! it seems only appropriate to have a cat-focused book.
Enter Glamourpuss. There is much more
narrative here than in the other books – but the message, about the importance
of friendship, is exactly the same. Glamourpuss lives with “gazillionaires” called
Mr. and Mrs. Highhorsen, and is waited on hand and paw by servants named Gustav
and Rosalie. The humans’ faces are never shown, since the whole focus of the
book is Glamourpuss, whose only job is to be glamorous, “and she was very good
at it.” In fact, she is so glamorous
that “instead of saying me-ow like an ordinary cat, she shortened it to just
ME!” Everything is just perfect for Glamourpuss until, one day, Mr.
Highhorsen’s sister shows up from Texas and brings along – Bluebelle. She is,
of all things, a dog, a Chihuahua who
comes with “tacky wardrobe and wagging tail” and a distinctly unhappy
expression. Glamourpuss’ own expression quickly becomes even unhappier than
Bluebelle’s, because the dog “did tricks”
and is unaccountably charming to the Highhorsens as she stands on a ball, does
flips, wears a fruit hat in Carmen Miranda fashion, even parades through the
house dressed as a Southern belle (complete with parasol). Glamourpuss becomes
so jealous that she even tries on one of Bluebelle’s outfits, but things just
get worse and worse as Bluebelle hogs all the attention. Soon Glamourpuss is
immersed in her very own “pity party.” But then, one day, Bluebelle tears up
all her cute little outfits and makes a gigantic mess of the guest room and gets
loudly scolded by Eugenia; and Glamourpuss is set to be the center of
everyone’s focus again. Except that she spots Bluebelle practicing being
glamorous – and realizes that Bluebelle hated all her forced performances and
never really wanted anything but to be like Glamourpuss! So the cat takes the
dog under her wing (or paw), and soon there are two haughty, stuck-up, ultra-dignified animals in the house – with
Bluebelle even “shortening ‘bow-wow’ to the much more glamorous WOW!” Eugenia
is not entirely happy with all this, but the Highhorsens are proud of
Glamourpuss, and cat and dog end up best friends – very glamorous ones indeed.
Sarah Weeks’ amusingly overdone story is perfectly reflected in David Small’s
illustrations, which combine ink and watercolor with pastels and even some
collages (the use of a famous picture of Theda Bara as Cleopatra in a scene
where the Highhorsens are watching TV is an especially funny touch, at least
for film buffs). Immersing a story about unlikely friends in the midst of a
tongue-in-cheek look at how the ultra-rich might live, Weeks and Small produce
a winning and offbeat story with some touches of surprising subtlety – such as
one page on which costumed Bluebelle grimaces toward lounging Glamourpuss as
the three super-rich humans toast the dog’s performance using three different
drinks, each person holding a glass while elegantly extending his or her pinky.
“WOW!” indeed.
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