I Am a Witch’s Cat by Harriet Muncaster (review)

A cat-costumed little kid explains, “My mom is a witch, and I am her special witch’s cat.” There’s plenty of proof: Mom keeps lots of mysterious bottles in the bathroom (“that I am NOT allowed to touch”), buys weird things in the supermarket (“EYEBALLS and GREEN FINGERS”), cooks up concoctions (“bubbling, hissing potions”) on the stove, and cures the narrator’s injuries (“she MAGICS it all better”). It’s an amusing concept, setting the strangeness of adult behaviors and tastes in a much more exciting context, and the art makes clear just how benign Mom’s activities are and how much delight the kid takes in the imagining. Regrettably, the story’s trajectory lacks the interest of the idea; it’s essentially a list, and it fades into an unsatisfyingly weak ending as Mom goes out on Friday and the narrator gets a babysitter. The art is an intriguing mix of two and three-dimensional elements; the painted figures of the child and mother exist as cutouts in a world that mixes carefully constructed realia with other paper-doll-style inserts, and flatly silhouetted figures often wear 3-D clothes and wield real objects. Though the result is over-busy at times, it has considerably more cohesion than some such mixtures, with a strong palette (Mom’s vivid orange hair stands out brilliantly) and thoughtful compositions adding to the flow. The pictures are best viewed up close, and kids whose attention has drifted when the story goes south may still want to pore over the art’s enticing details.