The New Kitten

by Joyce Carol Oates, Dave Mottram (Illustrator)

Overview

From acclaimed author (and cat lover!) Joyce Carol Oates comes a charming, heartwarming picture book.

As the only cat in her house, Cherie is accustomed to being showered with treats and affection. So when her family brings home a new kitten named Cleopatra, Cherie resents that she’s no longer the center of attention—and she can’t believe all the trouble that the kitten gets away with! Is one home big enough for two kitties?

Beautifully illustrated by Dave Mottram, this picture book will resonate for any reader who has—eventually!—found the joy in sharing the spotlight with a new family addition.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780062563927
Publisher:	HarperCollins
Publication date:	06/25/2019
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 11.20(h) x 0.50(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

Joyce Carol Oates is a recipient of the National Medal of Humanities, the National Book Critics Circle Ivan Sandrof Lifetime Achievement Award, the National Book Award, and the 2019 Jerusalem Prize, and has been several times nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. She has written some of the most enduring fiction of our time, including the national bestsellers We Were the Mulvaneys; Blonde, which was nominated for the National Book Award; and the New York Times bestseller The Falls, which won the 2005 Prix Femina. She is the Roger S. Berlind Distinguished Professor of the Humanities at Princeton University and has been a member of the American Academy of Arts and Letters since 1978.

Dave Mottram has always loved drawing animals. Even before grade school, Dave spent hours drawing and dreaming of being an artist. Not much has changed. He’s now a full-time illustrator living in Ohio, and some of his recent books include Wordy Birdy and Mighty Tug. He paints traditionally and digitally with color and layers that create a sophisticated style that is both childlike and appealing for adults. Dave enjoys family adventures with his wife, daughter, and Gracie, the black lab.

Hometown:

Princeton, New Jersey

Date of Birth:

June 16, 1938

Place of Birth:

Lockport, New York

Education:

B.A., Syracuse University, 1960; M.A., University of Wisconsin, 1961

Editorial Reviews

03/04/2019

Cherie the cat has a plummy life with the Smith family, until they bring home Cleopatra, a kitten who immediately seems to displace Cherie in everyone’s affections. Cherie’s journey back into the heart of the family takes some predictable twists and turns. In rich tones, Mottram’s digitally enhanced drawings play up the kitten’s adorable saucer-green eyes as she enjoys everything the elder cat is forbidden from doing (batting at toilet paper, pouncing upon her dry food). Adult author Oates’s wordy narrative follows an ill-advised attempt to run away that brings Cherie face-to-face with animal bullies. But the bullies remind Cherie that the family’s new addition is vulnerable—“just a kitten”—and the final page finds the two reconciled and snuggled together. Ages 4–8. (June)

Publishers Weekly

In rich tones, Mottram’s digitally enhanced drawings play up the kitten’s adorable saucer-green eyes.” — Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

2019-02-13

The puffy gray cat introduced in Naughty Cherie (illustrated by Mark Graham, 2008) learns to share her space and her humans.

Cherie's family leaves the house, promising to return with a surprise. She hopes it's tuna treats…but it's Cleopatra, a kitten. "Her legs were very short and her tail was thin—not at all like Cherie's big, fluffy tail. She did not have soft, long, gray fur like Cherie but very short, smooth, shiny fur." Cherie does not like anything about Cleopatra, but young human JoJo and her parents think the little cutie can do no wrong, even when she's making a mess. Cherie runs away, but after being treated shabbily by several wild animals (most of whom she would eat or be eaten by in reality), she returns home to snuggle, purring, with Cleopatra and JoJo. Award-winning novelist Oates throws down an astonishingly clumsy new-sibling picture book, wordy paragraphs displaying no trust whatsoever in her illustrator to help shoulder the narrative load. Mottram's mostly realistic, soft-edged, digitally created illustrations are attractive, but his manga-eyed cats only serve to boost the treacle factor. Readers tempted by the title and the author's reputation will be sorely disappointed—Susin Nielsen and Olivia Chin Mueller's recent Princess Puffybottom…and Darryl (2019) is ears and tails better than this.

An oft-told tale told poorly. (Picture book. 2-6)

Kirkus Reviews