Yes & No by Elisha Cooper (review)

When the unseen narrator addresses the big yellow dog and the smallish black cat (“Are you both excited for the day?”), the pup is always gleefully positive (“Yes, I am excited”), the cat, not so much (“Hmpff”). The same dynamic holds true through meals and cleanup, inside play, and finally outside play, where eventually the two silently find a wavelength as they gallivant off on a journey up a hill and then sit, staring contentedly at the view. Then the parental narrator says “It’s time to come inside, ” and then it’s the pooch’s turn to howl and resist, while the cat wisely keeps its own counsel. Eventually the dog, aided by the cuddle of the cat, comes to grips with bedtime, but of course the cat darts out the window with a final “No.” Cooper delicately constructs his dog and cat characters as simultaneously real critters and child proxies, with the puppy especially kidlike in his unfiltered glee and his grief at the end of a lovely day (which the narrator patiently talks him through). The art, in Cooper’s familiar softly shaped line and watercolor, brings the hilarity as the pup wrecks the kitchen or tangles with the drying laundry outside, bathos as the pouting pup mourns the end of the day, and warmth as the dog and cat make their way in the world or settle at home together. Keeping the narrator unseen adds another dimension of reality, wherein kids have a more concrete relationship with their siblings than they do with the elevated adults. It’s hard to imagine a more perfect bedtime story for the end of an adventurous toddler day.