Sunday 10 February 2013

Come Down, Cat



Sonya Hartnett is rather extraordinary. She publishes amazing books for adults and children, and won the Astrid Lingren Memorial Award in 2008. She buys and sells houses. Most recently she edited The Best Australian Stories 2012. She also writes the occasional picture book. 

I loved her first picture book, The Boy and the Toy. Here she teams up again with illustrator Lucia Masciullo. Sadly, I didn't love this book quite so much. Not that it's bad- it's not by any stretch.

Come Down, Cat is a simple tale. Young Nicholas is worried about his cat, who is up on the roof and won't come down even though it's nearly night time. He worries about all the "ghosts and monsters and creepy crawlies" that come out at night. "Won't you be frightened, cat?" Cats being cats of course the cat doesn't want to come down, until it it's good and ready. What will Nicholas do when it starts raining during the night?


Come Down, Cat was an Honour Book in the Children's Book Council of Australia Early Childhood Book of the Year 2012. The winner was The Runaway Hug- see my rather gushing review here.


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3 comments:

  1. Anonymous11 February 2013 at 09:34

    Thanks for posting about these. We're an ocean and mountains apart. I wouldn't have known about Australian lit if not for reading blogs like yours. ;)

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  2. Brona11 February 2013 at 14:33

    This book actually worked really well as a read aloud book with a small group of children. The language and sounds flowed nicely. But we had negative comments about the too dark pictures.

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  3. Louise13 February 2013 at 19:54

    Thanks Arti. I learn things from your blog each visit too.

    Brona- that's great to know. It's always interesting to see how they go over with kids.

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