My Cat, The Silliest Cat in the World

My Cat, The Silliest Cat in the World

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Here’s my Perfect Picture Book Friday choice:

My Cat, The Silliest Cat in the World
Written and Illustrated by Gilles Bachelet
Abrams for Young Readers, 2006
Fiction
Suitable for: ages 4-8
Themes: Cats, Elephants, Art, Imagination


Opening Lines: My cat is very fat, very sweet, and very, very silly.


Synopsis (from jacket flap): Meet the silliest cat in the world. Sure, he behaves like any normal cat — sleeping, eating, getting in the way, making a mess — but this cat has a strange side, too. As well as a trunk!


Link to resources: Painted Elephant Art Lesson from the Deep Space Sparkle site, which shares tons of art lessons for children. Here’s a link to free art lessons by grade. You can also have a discussion about similarities and differences between cats and elephants.


Why I like the Book: You can hopefully tell by the cover that this cat — is not a typical cat. The story is from the adult artist’s viewpoint. He describes the cat, who is usually sleeping or eating. And, the final pages share a very, very funny visual twist (as if the whole book isn’t enough). We don’t have cats (we’re dog people), but we had fun reading this story and comparing cats and elephants.


Find more PPBF at Susanna Leonard Hill’s blog.


I’ll be at the Rocky Mountain Chapter of SCBWI this weekend. The conference coordinators have a great line up of authors, illustrators, editors, and agents ready to share their  time and talent with us. More about that next week. Who else is at a SCBWI conference? It seems like many regional conferences are falling on this weekend.

Hiding Phil

Hiding Phil

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It’s Friday and time for Perfect Picture Book Friday! Here’s my PPBF selection:
Hiding Phil
Author and Illustrator Eric Barclay
Scholastic Press, 2013
Fiction
Suitable for: Ages 3-5
Topics/Themes: Friendship, Pets, Elephants


Opening Line: Look! An elephant!


Synopsis (from the jacket): Meet Phil. He’s an elephant. One day he meets three friends. They have so much fun with Phil that they decide to take him home. Their parents will love Phil, right? WRONG! Kids will fall over laughing at this great read-aloud story.


Link to Resources: The Human Society has a lesson plan about animals, National Pet Week Lesson Plans, Time for Kids material on elephants. I couldn’t find a resource on hiding elephants, so I believe Eric Barclay has that market cornered with Hiding Phil.


Why I like this book:  It’s a quick, simple read. It takes longer to soak up the illustrations than it does to read the book.  I didn’t type this one out to check the word count, but found one website that listed Hiding Phil at 85 words! This book definitely has the “read again” factor. We found this at the library, but will eventually add this one to our home bookshelf.