You and Me

In this warm outing from the duo behind The Museum, a lanky yellow cat imagines scenarios that might have interfered with its first encounter with its best friend, a similarly anthropomorphic purple cat. “What if I had slept in,/ covers pulled up to my chin?” the cat wonders. “Or if the clock had been slow and I was late,/ lingering over my breakfast plate.” Rendered in ink, gouache, watercolor, and tea, Reynolds’s typically loose and elegant cartoons picture each potentially friendship-preventing disaster, before concluding with scenes that celebrate the relationship that did indeed blossom. A decided romantic subtext (the cats themselves are gender-neutral, keeping such possibilities open-ended) and the small trim size may give the book its strongest audience among gift-giving adults, though children will have no trouble appreciating it. Ages 5–up. Agent: Holly McGhee, Pippin Properties. (Jan.)