THE NEW CAT

Life lessons learned from an older (and furrier) sibling.

Hunca Munca has it pretty good as a housecat. Then, one day, his family brings home the “New Cat” (in fact, a human infant). He stinks, has very little fur, and can’t even purr. Even so, the feline comes to care for the baby, determined to teach him everything that he needs to know (how to clean himself, purr, and yowl at walls). After a couple of years, however, Hunca Munca slows down. When he dies, the New Cat feels the loss keenly and begins to forget what he learned from Hunca Munca. That is, until another “new cat” comes along, and the old lessons are revived. Having previously paired together on Touch the Sky (2024), Lucianovic and Park dive deep into the sweetest aspects of sibling and pet affection. Lucianovic’s understated prose strikes the right note, tender but never sentimental or cloying. It’s Park’s art, however, that makes this a true standout. The illustrator’s constant experimentation with the cat’s angular presentation is stellar; Hunca Munca often appears as a mouthless blue/black combination of triangles and striking green eyes. All told, the book pairs rather beautifully with another circle of life feline title, Elisha Cooper’s Big Cat, Little Cat (2017). Human characters have paper-white skin.

A twist on both new baby and mortality of pet tales, all the stronger for the merger.