They All Saw a Cat

Written and Illustrated by: Brendan Wenzel

Chronicle Books, 2016, Hardcover

Target Audience: Ages 4-8

Genre: Fiction

Theme: Perspective, curiosity, looking at the world differently

How We Discovered This Book: This is an ALA Award winner of the Caldecott Award in 2017. Congratulations! Whenever I need some new quality books to read, I check out the ALA Award winners. There is a high probability that I will like the books they select.

Summary: A cat explores the world and encounters a child, other animals, and bugs. The author/illustrator then shows us what each of them see when they see the cat. He uses mixed medium to show a different view of the cat each time. While it’s very enjoyable for a child visually and audibly (spare, lovely prose), adults will be interested in the underlying thoughts, perspectives, and assumptions that go into each view.

What the Kids Liked About This Book: Both of my kids enjoyed the contrasts in images, words, and ideas. It caused some interesting discussion between them after reading.

Resources:

Grab a group of friends or family and make your own paintings or drawings of what you see around you (preferably outdoors after a walk/hike!). Hang up your pictures gallery style, and compare and contrast what you each saw.

Talk about how animals might see us. Watch this video on How Animals See the World.

Here are some activities and coloring pages from the publisher. Enjoy!

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Max is back with his review of They All Saw a Cat. Max would love to hear your suggestions on picture books he should review. Please share your suggestions in the comments!

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