At the Drop of a Cat

A six-year-old portrayed with paper-white skin narrates this reflection about a cherished grandparent. “Every Wednesday, and on Sundays, too,” grandfather Luis cares for the child, who loves to draw and is learning to read and write. Luis is a miraculous gardener (“His green beans climb all the way to the sky,” writes Fontenaille) with an intimate knowledge of wildlife. Artist Lópiz (The True Story of a Mouse Who Never Asked for It) places colorful silhouettes of leaves and birds within the contours of Luis’s face, behind his bushy moustache and serious eyes. Slowly, the grandchild reveals more about Luis: he escaped a war at the age of 11 by walking from Spain to France; he “never learned how to read or write, not even his name”; and he’s an incredible artist, covering his walls with images of flora and fauna. The dense foliage that twines through the art mirrors the rich thicket of the grandchild’s thoughts and the grandfather’s knowledge as the two spend time together, sharing Luis’s idiosyncratic idioms (“At the drop of a cat”) and celebrating the child’s success in a lushly produced book that asks where worth really lies. Ages 6–up. (Sept.)