PANDORA

Mayne (Hob and the Goblin, 1994, etc.) has written sympathetically of cats before in The Patchwork Cat (1981), and his description of a boggart-beset cottage cat is one of the eerie details enriching his novel, Earthfasts (1967). Here a beautiful black house cat, accustomed to great comfort and solicitude from the man and woman who own her, leaves her cozy home, neglected after a baby is born. The lushly detailed paintings show that Pandora leaves in high summer and spends several months living wild, returning as the snowdrops bloom because the birth of her two kittens has taught her (in this exceedingly anthropomorphized story) to understand the man and woman's feelings for their baby. The happy ending shows ``two lots of one and two and three, all at the table, cozy between the teapot and the toast.'' This truly artful story will instantly be understood by any child who has felt unimportant after the birth of a sibling, with Blech's meticulous renderings of the idyllic British country setting to savor for all their color, texture, and detail. Poetic and satisfying. (Picture book. 5-9)