When the Silliest Cat Was Small: 04/01/18

When the Silliest Cat Was Small by Gilles Bachelet is a follow up to My Cat, the Silliest Cat in the World. Every pet owner probably has a story about how they got their pet. That's what this one is, the brief childhood before being adopted by the narrator.

Like the previous book the conceit here is that cats look like elephants. I don't know if all cats in this picture book world, or just the cats that the narrator is interested in adopting.

We see the typical kitten adoption story of mama cat, her kittens, the different developing personalities as the kittens grow, and the final picking of a kitten.

Now re-imagine mama cat and all her kittens as elephants, but with the coloring of cats. Now this choice to make the other kittens colored in typical cat patterns seems like an odd one. It opens up questions that just aren't answered and would be difficult to answer given the short format of a children's picture book.

Frankly I would have preferred to stay with the initial set up — an elephant being a cat. So rather than a litter of cat colored elephants, I'd rather the text to go with scenes of an obvious elephant herd, obvious elephant mother.

Five stars

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