Cats and Carols
Gr. 3^-6. This picture book of 15 Christmas carols looks like a gift book, but cat lovers who don't find a copy under the tree will enjoy checking it out of the library. Each left-hand page contains the words of a Christmas carol, framed by a decorative border. On the right, the same border appears around a colorful, lifelike painting of cats in a setting suggested by the song. "Away in a Manger" shows a barn cat watching her three kittens curled up in the hay, and "Ding! Dong! Merrily on High" features a kitten reaching up to jingle the bells in a window. Although a few selections are distinctively English, most of the carols are familiar to Americans as well, and that's good, since the book includes no music. Ivory's distinctive cat paintings, known to readers of herBirthday Cat(1993) and Eisler'sCat Knows Best(1988), here take on a distinctly Pre-Raphaelite flavor in motifs as well as colors and patterns. An unusual (and largely successful) combination of cats and carols.Carolyn Phelan