CHICKEN AND CAT

Artfully using color more than faces to show feeling, Varon debuts with a wordless, very simply drawn tale of a New York City chicken finding a way to make a feline visitor from the country more at home. Stepping down from the bus, Cat’s first impressions of the big city come from rats and roaches, dogs, garbage and, most of all, the dull beige tones of streets and buildings all around. Though Chicken takes Cat to Central Park, and even out to Coney Island’s beaches and boats, nothing lifts the mood—until, that is, Chicken and Cat buy flower and vegetable seeds to turn the empty lot visible from Cat’s window into a garden. The lifting spirits are signaled by subtle changes of expression and small floral explosions of color, but it won’t escape young viewers sensitive to such visual cues. A fine, deceptively simple-looking start. (Picture book. 5-8)