#948 – They All Saw a Cat by (Rising Star) Brendan Wenzel | Kids Lit Review Kids Lit Review Honest, Thoughtful Reviews Menu Skip to content Home About Review Schedule BOOK REVIEWS Best Book Award Reviews by Title Reviews by Author Middle Grade Books Picture Books Chapter Books Board Books Nonfiction Poetry Graphic Novels Christmas Books Holiday Books Other Books – by Genre Request a Review Review Requests rev. 8-2020 Kid Lit Reviews is Reviewed Contact Forms Contact Us Book Review Requests Important Stuff Reprints & Permissions Privacy Policy Disclosures & FTC Disclaimer Net Neutrality Archive Index #948 – They All Saw a Cat by (Rising Star) Brendan Wenzel By SMorris/KidLitReviews 820168 Brendan Wenzel cats Chronicle Books identity imagination observations perspective rhythmic prose They All Saw a Cat rr They All Saw a Cat Written and Illustrated by Brendan Wenzel Chronicle Books 8/30/2016 978-1-4521-5013-0 44 pages Ages 4—8 Junior Library Guild Selection . “The cat walked through the world, with its whiskers, ears, and paws . . . “When you see a cat, what do you see? In this glorious celebration of observation, curiosity, and imagination, Brendan Wenzel shows us the many lives of one cat, and how perspective shapes what we see.” [inside jacket] Review A calico cat, with a red collar and a gold bell announcing its presence, walks through its world, passing by various other creatures. These creatures see the cat from their own personal perspective. Some view the cat as a harmless kitten, while others might view the cat as a curiosity or even a horrendous predator ready to pounce. Wenzel illustrates each animal’s perspective of the cat, and then creates that animal’s image from the cat’s viewpoint. Painting these images was probably the easy part. Understanding each animal’s viewpoint, and then visually interpreting this for young children, required getting inside each animal’s head. Wenzel then translates each vision into beautiful images children can understand (maybe with adult help, but most likely not). Wenzel then reverses the process to determine how the cat sees each animal, though to a lesser degree. For example, the mouse sees the cat as a terrifying proposition. From the mouse’s perspective, Wenzel gives readers a large black cat with yellow crazed eyes, large pointed teeth, and long sharp claws ready to trap the mouse. The background, painted red—a warning punctuating the mouse’s fear—screams out, “Run mouse, run!” In the cat’s eyes, the mouse has huge white eyes and—so I imagine—twitchy whiskers, possibly calling to the cat, “Dinner!” Wenzel has created a brilliant picture book about perspective, a difficult subject to teach a young child. He clearly understands the animal world—and children. Wenzel does an amazing job of seeing each of the twelve animal’s perspective and translating them into images children will understand. The illustrations, rendered in—are you ready?—(quote) “almost everything imaginable, including colored pencil, oil pastels, acrylic paint, watercolor, charcoal, Magic Marker, good old number 2 pencils, and even an iBook,” are keen, colorful, and captivating. Young children will love these images of the animal kingdom, possibly right from their own backyards. They All Saw a Cat was quite the undertaking on Wenzel’s part. He put everything he had into his debut solo picture book. It’s no wonder publishers got into a bidding war to acquire Wenzel’s first two books. He got an amazing advance and young children got an amazing storyteller and artist. THEY ALL SAW A CAT Text and illustrations copyright © 2016 by Brendan Wenzel. Reproduced by permission of the publisher, Chronicle Books, San Francisco, CA. Amazon —Indie Books—Apple Books—Chronicle Books—Special Offer (while supplies last) Find They All Saw a Cat on Goodreads HERE. Brendan Wenzel: http://brendanwenzel.info/ Follow on Twitter @BRENDAN_WENZEL Chronicle Books: http://www.chroniclebooks.com/ Follow on Twitter @ChronicleKids AND @ChronicleBooks . Reprinted with permission from THEY ALL SAW A CAT © 2016 by Brendan Wenzel, Chronicle Books, Illustrations © 2016 by Brendan Wenzel. . . (picture books) . Copyright © 2016 by Sue Morris/Kid Lit Reviews. All Rights Reserved . They All Saw a Cat Written and Illustrated by Brendan Wenzel Chronicle Books 8/30/2016 9781452150130 Rate this: Pass it On! Tweet Share on Tumblr Stumbleupon Email Print Like this: Like Loading... Related Posted in Debut Author, Debut Illustrator, Picture Books Post navigation Previous Next 7 thoughts on “#948 – They All Saw a Cat by (Rising Star) Brendan Wenzel” writersideup 10201610 at 1:49 am Reply This book is gaining a “Caldecott” buzz and it’s easy to see why! The illustrating of these many perspectives is not an easy thing to pull off and the whole concept is just very cool. I love how it enforces the differences in point of view. And lucky me, I got to meet Brendan in NYC last week. Such a nice guy! Love the review, Sue 🙂 P.S. I’ll be blogging about that event soon 🙂 I hope you enjoy it! LikeLike Sasha Carr 920169 at 7:44 am Reply What a wonderful concept! Thanks for another detailed and helpful review. We may need to check this one out even though we are allergic to cats! LikeLike Sue Morris @ KidLitReviews 920169 at 10:20 am Reply From what I understand, not even the dog sneezed once. I hope you enjoy this. You can add your view of cat from far, far, away. LikeLike ThisKidReviewsBooks 820168 at 5:23 pm Reply I really thought that this was a neat book. Great review! 😀 LikeLike Sue Morris @ KidLitReviews 920169 at 10:23 am Reply If you like concept books, this is a winner. I love it. Did you know he received an amazing and rare deal for his 2-book deal ? Brendan Wenzel is an artist to keep your eye on. LikeLike Genevieve Petrillo 820168 at 6:03 am Reply If I see a cat, mostly I am afraid. I’m pretty sure cats are trying to kill me. Love and licks, Cupcake LikeLike Sue Morris @ KidLitReviews 920169 at 10:25 am Reply Having had many cats, who lived quite long lives, most were afraid of dogs. Now with my first dog—and 2 cats—I think you may be right. LikeLike If you like this post ... Why? Cancel reply Enter your comment here... Please log in using one of these methods to post your comment: Email (required) (Address never made public) Name (required) Website You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out / Change ) You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change ) You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change ) Cancel Connecting to %s Notify me of new comments via email. Notify me of new posts via email. Δ This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Photos A WordPress.com Website. 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