Seymour Bleu

The cat Seymour Bleu, a painter, sits in front of ""his beautiful, pur-r-r-fectly white, as white as an Arctic summer, new, tightly stretched canvas,"" and he is stumped, ""pur-r-r-plexed about what to draw and paint."" Trips to the refrigerator, garden, bookstore and art museum fail to spark any ideas, but when a passel of Seymour's pals arrives for a dinner party, they fill his studio with laughter, food--and inspiration. Deeter's (illustrator of Alice Walker's To Hell with Dying) text works in lots of colors rarely named outside the extra-big Crayola box (e.g., viridian, cerulean, burnt umber); these are used in the facing illustrations. She also imparts useful facts about an artist's palette: warm versus cool tones, primary colors and how to mix them. Her mixed-media art saturates the pages with bold shapes and, appropriately, vibrant shades. But while children may enjoy following Seymour on his journey about town, his predicament is relayed in a meandering style, and the language, with its uneasy mix of puns and art diction, never attains a childlike tone. Ages 4-8. (Nov.)