Spot, the Cat

This wordless, oversize, black-and-white picture book follows a cat who escapes out an open apartment window and explores its city--all the while sought by its worried owner. Each double-page spread is a marvel of (pen-and-ink crosshatched) detail; viewers will need time and patience to find boy and cat on each spread. Fortunately, the locations are teeming with activity and objects of interest.

This wordless, oversized, and, save for the cover and endpapers, solely black-and-white picture book follows a cat who escapes out of an open apartment window and subsequently explores its compact, attractive city -- all the while sought by its worried owner, a small, shock-headed boy. Each double-page spread is a marvel of (pen-and-ink crosshatched) detail, but this is no Where's Waldo: the boy is practically invisible in his plain clothing and unremarkable appearance, and the cat, though it does feature a distinctive spot on its side, wanders a city with a fair number of semi-lookalikes. Viewers will need time and patience to find boy and cat on each spread. Fortunately, the locations (streetscapes, a park full of kites, a farmer's market, a train station, a canal lined with fishermen, the steps of an art museum) are teeming with activity and interactions and objects of interest; the rewards of each page are greater than simply locating searcher and searchee. At book's end Cole refocuses our attention on the boy's distress at the loss of his cat, so that their ultimate reunion has an emotional impact. A paean, simultaneously, to the joys of city life, small adventures, and human/pet devotion. martha v. parravano