Chester's Back: 09/09/11

Chester's Back by Mélanie Watt is the sequel to Chester. In all of these books, Chester the cat tries to edit or out-right rewrite Watt's books. He makes his "edits" in red marker pen and nothing is sacred.

In Chester's Back Chester doesn't want to star in a fairy tale that starts the same old way: "Once upon a time..." and decides that a cave cat story would be better. When that doesn't work he tries other costumes and settings.

The Chester books are a lot like the old Warner Bros.' classic, Duck Amok. In it, Daffy Duck is trying to act in a short but the animator keeps getting in his way by changing his costume, changing the scenery or worse. Chester's a little different in that he's in the book and aware of his status as a picture book cat. It's not so much that Mélanie is getting in his way as he is getting in her way. It's a nice reversal on an old gag, one that I'm sure goes back well beyond Duck Amok.

Four stars.

Comments (2)

Comment #1: Sunday, September, 18, 2011 at 11:59:43

Carin Siegfried

I love Chester! I actually have a Chester red magic marker from a promo a couple of years ago. I thought that was really clever.

Comment #2: Monday, September 19, 2011 at 20:28:15

Pussreboots

How cute!