CAT AND MOUSE

An insipid story about making friends, hauntingly illustrated with soft-edged, simplified geometric forms and scumbled colors. A cat and a mouse are each being taught about the world by their mothers, but they aren't paying attention. They find each other in a green meadow, remark on their differences, try to scare each other, and end up playing all day. That night, the mouse's siblings ask, ``How could you have fun with a cat?'' while the cat's siblings want to know ``How could you be friends with a mouse?'' The next day all the cats and mice meet in the meadow and play until their mothers call them home. Confusingly, the pictures show the cats and mice about the same size most of the time. This underlines the didacticism of the story while belying—without much imagination—the natural predator/prey relationship of the animals involved. (Picture book. 3-5)