String Ball

Crafting meets cat curiosity in this purr-fectly elegant, nearly wordless story from Monroe (Sasquatch and Squirrel). Step-by-step instructions for making a hollow globe kick things off, showing a child covering a balloon with bright red string and a glue mixture. After the sphere dries overnight and the balloon is popped and removed, the youth departs, backpack in tow, leaving behind both the creation and a little black cat with saucer eyes. Yearning to adventure with its human, the kitty is nevertheless drawn to the string ball, and it crawls into an opening, thus setting in motion a series of mishaps worthy of Wile E. Coyote. As the bright red orb bounces through an otherwise largely b&w world rendered in eloquently scratchy lines, the pages reveal the oblivious players who interact with what seems to be an ordinary ball alongside a cutaway of the comically discombobulated kitty inside. A length of string divides the page between the two views as dogs chase the sphere, pigeons peck at it, a bird sends it careening down a slide, and a baby gleefully drops it from a carriage. Finally, thanks to a squirrel with yearnings of its own, ball and cat end up safely back home and ready for a nap, their arrival slyly suggesting a mystery to the child. Human skin tones echo the white of the page. Ages 4–8. (May)