The Cat's Pajamas

Like Edwards's previous collection of idioms, Monkey Business (2004), this grouping illustrates figures of speech with outlandish sentences that use and (usually) define them, as well as richly worked paintings. In one, a mouse in a party hat walks along a pipe carrying a piece of birthday cake: "Blanche discovered that finding her way home from the party was a piece of cake." The panels, done in watercolor, colored pencil, and gouache, feature an inexhaustible store of surreal fantasies; there's a frog driving a submersible, a crab tying a giraffe's bowtie, and a panda playing a violin with spaghetti ("In order to have dinner music, Andy was forced to use his noodle"). Cats are tucked into each scene, providing even more reason to explore the images in detail. The explanations for each phrase, provided at the end, will be necessary in some cases—a portrait of Inspector Reinhold, a rhino with a fish perched on his horn, doesn't suggest the suspiciousness that comes with smelling "something fishy," and a snail's pace, as it hurtles down a hill, comes across as quite rapid. All ages. (Aug.)