Shadowcat (Julia Louise, illus by Anne Ryan, The Five Mile Press)

A little girl called Edith thinks she might be turning into a garden gnome, and no-one seems to notice. She’s scolded, so she decides to stay outside and sit as still as a statue. A curious, rather forward cat finds Edith, and notices that she doesn’t dream, because ‘all cats can see dreams’. Edith perks up when the cat teaches her how to dance—and presumably to dream—and her happiness is restored. Sibling rivalry is implied in this picture book (Edith has a baby brother), and the colour green is certainly dominant throughout the illustrations. Anne Ryan’s pictures are very ‘painterly’, and some of them have a mysterious, dreamy quality. An illustration of a worried Edith lying awake in her bed captures the isolation and loneliness that a child can feel, but in some of the pictures, Edith has a doll-like quality that doesn’t quite gel with the message of the text. This is a winsome, imaginative book, and would be a good springboard for talking about loneliness, or feeling left out, for children aged four and up.

Louise Pfanner is an author, illustrator and bookseller

Books+Publishing pre-publication reviews are supported by the Copyright Agency Cultural Fund.

Category: Reviews