Cat's Colors

by Airlie Anderson, Airlie Anderson (Illustrator)

Overview

What better thing to do on a grey day than collect some colors? Cat decides to do just that, but where will she find them? A charming, deceptively simple story about making the most of the world around us, and giving something back in return.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781786282200
Publisher:	Child's Play-International
Publication date:	08/01/2021
Series:	Child's Play Library
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	512,495
Product dimensions:	11.25(w) x 8.62(h) x 0.25(d)
Age Range:	3 - 7 Years

Editorial Reviews

07/01/2016
Baby-Toddler—Cat collects different hues while wandering through a gray day into a black night, with the colors appearing as spots on her white fur coat throughout her walk. It makes no sense that colors magically attach themselves to her, and the surprising, yet adorable, ending is even more perplexing, but that won't deter young children from delighting in the bold images of Cat's relaxed, cheerful adventure. The gouache illustrations feature vivid primary and secondary colors amid gray and black backgrounds on each page. Anderson's story closely resembles Emma Dodd's Dog's Colorful Day, but it has quieter background images and less text, befitting a younger audience. Both titles offer opportunities to count and identify colors, while Dodd's story adds more humor and complexity. VERDICT A fun and simple book that is perfect for fidgety toddlers and will work well in a baby storytime.—Gaye Hinchliff, King County Library System, WA

School Library Journal

2016-04-13
A cat walks through a gray landscape, collecting colors for a surprise project.Cat sits on a stretch of medium-gray ground, licking her paw. Gray clouds containing neat spiral patterns hover calmly above her. Cat's activities are supposedly "gray-day things," but she sports a tiny smile. Suddenly she opens her eyes wide: it's time to "collect some colors." Traversing her landscape, she observes green leaves on a tree; immediately afterward, a green spot appears on her white coat. Next, she breathes in "the red smell of roses," and a red spot joins the green one. As Cat collects colored splotches on her fur, the backgrounds stay gray—save for Cat's fur and its increasing colored dots, everything is gray except each spread's featured hue. The final color she collects is yellow, from the moon, and then she disappears into a tall stand of upright gray leaves for the night. "Cat?" asks the text at dawn, trying to coax her into sight. She doesn't emerge, but readers get a close-up view inside the bush: there's Cat, stretched blissfully across the spread, nursing a rainbow of kittens. Each is a color that Cat collected the night before. Anderson's gray world is warm and softly textured—despite the spectrum of lovely surprise kittens, gray has a day in the sun here too.Gentle and charming. (Picture book. 2-5)

Kirkus Reviews