Baker Cat - Softcover

Posy Simmonds is a cartoonist and a children's book author and illustrator. She drew the cartoons Gemma Bovery and Tamara Drewe for the Guardian for many years, both of which were published as books, and the latter adapted into a movie. Her book Fred was filmed as Famous Fred, and nominated for the Academy Award for Animated Short Film.

PreS-Gr. 2. A beleaguered cat lives with a mean baker and his lazy wife. They work him furiously, baking, cleaning, but he is mostly there to catch mice. Unfortunately, after a day of peeling, icing, slicing, and washing up, he is too tired to chase mice, and since the size of his supper is commensurate with the mouse count, he is hungry a lot. Enter the mice, who strike a deal with the weary, teary cat. They manufacture tails out of wool, which the cat can show the baker, and they get to chow down out of the storage bins. This works well until the cat is ordered to bake lots of cakes, and there are no supplies left. It's up to the mice to make sure the cat stays out of trouble and that they stay out of him. This British import is part picture book, part graphic novel for the preschool set, as Simmonds combines traditional spreads with strips and other design techniques, for example, dialogue in balloons. The terrific ink-and-watercolor art with its sly characterizations also falls somewhere between the two formats. An unexpected ending is a good closer. Ilene Cooper
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