Cats' Night Out (Paula Wiseman Books)
It’s Saturday night on Easy Street, and this jazzy counting book reveals that the city’s hot spots are its rooftops, fire escapes, and alleyways, where pairs of cool kitties dance the night away. As music rises into the night air, 2 cats samba in white, while nearby 4 more felines boogie in saddle shoes and poodle skirts, and still 6 more tango in capes on fire escapes. Their numbers increase, until finally, when 20 hep cats conga on clotheslines, the neighbors revolt. Stutson’s syncopated rhymes sport fun flourishes of dance and fashion vocabulary (“Twelve town tabbies do the twist, / swinging their hips in dotted Swiss”) and a catchy refrain, but it’s Klassen’s atmospheric, retro illustrations that take the lead. The stellar digitally rendered illustrations in a muted gray and brown palette may resonate more with urban sophisticates than children learning their numbers, but the detailed cityscapes, hidden numbers, and appealing big-city cats will give little ones plenty to explore. Preschool-Kindergarten. --Kristen McKulski