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Summary
Summary
A beautifully illustrated retelling of the beloved fairy tale from Caldecott Medal-winning author Jerry Pinkney
For generations, children have been enchanted by the tale of the clever cat in fancy boots who outsmarts a king and a sorcerer to win a castle and a bride for his penniless master. The humor, the magic, and a lush Renaissance setting are all on glorious display, and a well-placed gatefold adds to the drama. This elegant new edition of Charles Perrault's folktale is essential for every child's library. Read it in tandem with other Pinkney classic picture books like The Little Red Hen and The Lion and the Mouse.
"This book is larger than life."- Library Media Connection
Reviews (2)
Horn Book Review
A rakish tabby wearing a feathered hat pulls on a pair of jaunty leather boots on the book's cover, looking out directly at the reader with just a glint of fangs showing -- this is no ordinary cat. Pinkney stays close to Perrault's written version of the story (according to the artist's note, Pinkney chose to set the tale in France in 1729, the date of the English publication of "Puss in Boots"), providing sumptuous watercolor, gouache, and colored-pencil illustrations that place realistic natural elements like animals and trees side by side with the ostentatious embellishments in the eighteenth-century clothing and furnishings of the human characters. In the story, a youngest son inherits nothing but a cat, but when the cat requests a pair of boots, he "knew his cat to be clever, and so he agreed." The cat then traps a series of animals (rabbit, partridge, pheasant) and delivers them to the king as a daily gift from the fictitious "Count of Carabas." He also manages to wrangle a set of fancy clothes for his master. Finally, the cat tricks a sorcerer into turning himself into a variety of animals, ending with a small, easily caught mouse, thus leaving his enormous castle to the cat's master. Aside from switching the story's usual ogre into a sorcerer, Pinkney sticks very close to the source, and uses his large pages, including a gatefold illustration, to great effect in showing the sorcerer's transformations. Perhaps one day he will flesh out the adventures hinted at in the book's closing endpapers, showing the debonair feline aboard a sailing ship. susan dove lempke (c) Copyright 2013. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A retold but intact version of the familiar tale, given the customary early-18th-century setting in illustrations crowded with figures and period detail. Pinkney retells the tale in plain, measured language: " Have some boots made for me,' [the cat] said, and give me a strong sack with a drawstring. I just might be able to help you find your fortune.' " With a few minor changes or additions (the ogre, for instance, is a "rich and evil sorcerer" depicted as human), the story puts passive young Benjamin into the paws of a feline impresario who orchestrates his rise to fame, fortune and a royal wedding to the equally inert Princess Daniella. Identified in the author's afterword as a "black-and-white silver-tabby British shorthair," the cat cuts a properly self-confident, swashbuckling figure as he inserts himself into a claustrophobically populous royal entourage bursting with sumptuously patterned silks, floating ribbons, airy plumage and ruffles. He goes on to trick the sorcerer in a confrontation (depicted in part in an awkwardly placed gatefold) and to become prime minister. Nor are his adventures over, as a nautical scene on the rear endpaper hints. Handsomely turned out, as can be expectedbut Pinkney himself notes that he studied over 20 illustrated editions of the story before producing one of his own, and he offers nothing particularly fresh. (Picture book/folk tale. 7-10)]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
