When a cat-loving household decides to convey home a pet, their quest reveals the highs and lows of on a regular basis household life on this heartwarming story—excellent for kitten lovers and everybody who’s ever longed for a pet.
MARIA RUSSO: Hello, Emily!
EMILY JENKINS: Hello! Readers may not know this, however Maria and I am going method again. We attended grad faculty collectively; then she employed me to jot down evaluations when she was a e-book editor at Salon. We had infants on the similar time and went to mommy-baby yoga and the park; I wrote evaluations for the New York Times when Maria was the Children’s Books Editor—and now she’s my image e-book editor!
MR: All true! And The Kitten Story made my coronary heart sing after I first learn it. Of course, the characters are based mostly on your loved ones, and in your cat, all of whom I do know and love. Then the lovely illustrations got here in from Brittany Cicchese, who’s such a proficient artist, and occurs to be a librarian!
It’s a feel-good pet rescue story…but in addition a lot extra.
EJ: The true topic of The Kitten Story is household negotiations. What do you do if you disagree? Do you are taking a ballot? Argue it out? Does one mum or dad have ultimate say? When my household adopted Blizzard, I felt I may convey one thing contemporary to the “getting a pet” style by writing concerning the methods we labored out our disagreements.
MR: Let’s additionally discuss the way you broke a rule for image e-book writing, my rascally good friend. And obtained away with it, superbly.
EJ: The rule is: your protagonist have to be a toddler. Or a bunny.
MR: That’s what a whole lot of image e-book consultants insist! They say youngsters have to be on the middle of a narrative and that grownups are boring. But right here you made Mommy the narrator.
EJ: Well, some adults are boring. And one of many key jobs of image books is to middle and validate the emotional lives of youngsters.
However, there’s an extended historical past of grownup protagonists in books for the very younger. Sure, fairy tales like “Rumpelstiltskin” have grownup heroes, but in addition older image books like The Man Who Didn’t Wash His Dishes (Phyllis Krasilovsky, illus. Barbara Cooney) or Caps for Sale (Esphyr Slobodkina).
Then there are image books—outdated and new—centering younger animal heroes who reside independently and prepare dinner their very own meals. These characters occupy a liminal house between baby and grownup. In Peter Brown’s Mr. Tiger Goes Wild, for instance, Mr. Tiger is an grownup with the sentiments of a three-year-old—he desires to take off all his garments and streak by way of the city middle. Christopher Denise’s Knight Owl goes to knight faculty and will get a job however is by some means nonetheless a child owl. In Hsu-Kung Liu’s The Orange Horse, a horse looking for his misplaced brother travels by way of a metropolis on his personal, exhibiting {a photograph} to everybody he meets—however he’s nonetheless a bit boy. Or suppose Arnold Lobel’s Frog and Toad dwelling on their very own however yelling at vegetation that don’t develop quick sufficient.
Back to grownup people: they’re much less frequent in in the present day’s image books, however some great recent examples embrace David Small’s Fenwick’s Suit, Officer Buckle and Gloria by Peggy Rathmann, and many books by Jon Agee—Milo’s Hat Trick, Terrific, and many others.
MR: Those are all such nice books. But in most of them, the grownup features as form of an outsider, or childlike not directly. Or there are 
youngsters within the story, however the adults are a bit dim or are actually there to assist the youngsters. This isn’t how we expertise your e-book. Mommy is absolutely the accountable grownup, along with her personal opinions.
EJ: Yes, it’s first-person mother! I attempted writing it from a child’s perspective, but it surely wasn’t as significant (by way of my theme of household negotiations) and extra importantly, it wasn’t as humorous. I handled the undertaking similar to I used to be telling a automotive full of youngsters the story of what occurred in my precise household, in probably the most amusing method I knew how.
MR: Don’t overlook Tulip and Rosie. They’re baby characters with robust opinions and do handle to drive the motion—as a lot as kids in any household can.
EJ: For positive. Rosie is the older sister—able to courageous hazard to get a kitten, and keen to call the brand new pet after some form of horrible monster. Tulip is the cat-obsessed youthful sister, making indicators to welcome the kitten home and wanting to call it after some form of dessert. They don’t at all times get alongside completely—however I knew from expertise that even when households disagree, there can nonetheless be a cheerful ending.
MR: And the joyful ending in The Kitten Story can also be a extremely joyful starting—a brand new pet. Not a lot is best than that!
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