Matilda’s Cat

Gravett’s humor generally runs from giddy to Gothic; in this story, it’s toward the sweeter end of the spectrum. Dressed in a cat costume, Matilda makes ambitious plans for her cat—and her cat ignores them. The text consists of pencil-scrawled lists of things that her cat “likes,” which get crossed out as they fail to prove true. “Matilda’s cat likes playing with wool,” writes Gravett (Again!) as the cat cowers behind the yarn basket. Matilda tries stacking cardboard boxes into a playhouse (“playing with wool, boxes”) and pedaling a trike (“playing with wool, boxes, and riding bikes!”); the cat leaps in the other direction. It turns out that a good cuddle is all it wants. The cumulative pile-up of failures, comic in itself, is augmented with many smaller giggles (a tea party in which Matilda gets all the treats and the cat is left with a banana). Both cat and child project a wild and humorous range of emotion, from the cat’s terror at a canine shadow puppet to Matilda’s perturbation that her pet would rather lick itself indecorously than participate in her best-laid plans. Ages 4–8. (Mar.)