Metro Cat (Family Storytime) - Hardcover

This value-priced book delivers a subtle message about the importance of making the best of a reversal of fortune and of assessing what defines good fortune. Sophie, the "fanciest cat in Paris" and the cover model for Fancy Cat magazine, finds her life turned upside down when she and her silk-lined carrying case sail out of her limousine one morning and down the subway stairs. Darting between the legs of commuters, she finds sustenance in bits of baguette and croissant dropped on the train platform. Later Sophie ascends to street level, where she pairs up with a kind, elderly street musician, by dancing with gusto to the strains of his fiddle. She leads him down to the Metro station, where the duo wows the crowd. The spectators enthusiastically fill the fellow's coffers, and the two become fast friends. Rendered in watercolor, acrylic and colored pencil, Davis's (Music Over Manhattan) zippy, stylized art pays droll attention to detail: carved wooden mice top bedposts and fish adorn the footboard of Sophie's elegant wooden bed; and a dazzling array of funky footwear is viewed from the newly self-sufficient cat's perspective in the Metro. With art and narrative serving up more than a soup‡on of humor, this is a winning choice for a read-aloud. Ages 4-8.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Ages 4-8. As a magazine cover model, Sophie LaBecque is the fanciest feline in Paris. She lives in luxury, with fresh trout for breakfast and a view of the Seine--until the day the silk-lined carrying case she travels in sails out of her speeding limousine and down into the Paris subway. Sophie is unused to independent living but makes a game of dodging the "click-click, squish-squish, shuffle-shuffle" of high-heeled pumps, tennis shoes, and wingtips to pounce on dropped tidbits from commuters' breakfasts. When she befriends Jacques, a street musician, her fancy footwork earns the pair francs, as she dances to his violin music. She also finds a new, simpler home on Jacques' houseboat, again enjoying trout and naps overlooking the Seine. The nice message about simplicity is juxtaposed neatly against the paint-and-pencil cartoon renderings of Paris that convey the bustle and diversity of metropolitan life. Descriptive and narrative details echo throughout the text and are amplified in the art, making Sophie's tale an eminently satisfying one. Amy Brandt
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