PADDIWAK AND COZY

Bartlett doesn’t allow readers not to like her artwork, with the brio and dash of her thick colors and the instant appeal of her characters’ faces. The same applies to Doherty’s trim little story, which is full of enjoyable word play. Paddiwak, a cat and “a heartthrob (quite a snob), very smart in his neat black suit,” rules his roost until the day, that “terrible day,” when Sally brings home another cat, and what a cat: “A laugh of a cat, a dumpling cat with a black bit here and a white bit there, floppy round the tummy and great big paws.” Paddiwak takes grave offense, hisses, and leaves, huffing that he will never return. The new cat explores timidly, while Paddiwak stews outside. Just when the new cat is feeling really lonely and blue, the dark and the rain suggest to Paddiwak that he end his self-imposed exile. He is sodden and rumpled as he sneaks into a favorite den and finds “something as cuddly as a cushion to lay his head on.” That’s the new cat, now called Cozy, and so is the story, where a cat can act like a fool without being condemned as one, as long as he knows when to come in out of the rain. (Picture book. 3-6)