Kat Patrick (text), Lauren Marriott (illus.), Doodle Cat is Bored, Scribe, 1 May 2017, 32pp., $22.99 (hbk), ISBN: 9781925321883
It’s immensely difficult not to stop and look at this bright yellow cover with a red cat and the most bored expression. I think anyone, kid or adult, will relate to that expression.
So, Doodle Cat is bored – terribly so, and we all know that a bored child is a child that can get up to all sorts of things. Doodle Cat finds a crayon and proceeds to thoroughly entertain himself as he tries to figure out what to do with it.
I think the fun and the beauty of this book is that, even if a child knows what the crayon is, they get to see Doodle Cat experiment with it and do silly things in an effort to find out what it does. And when he does find out what it does, the pages come alive with fun and colourful illustrations that are sure to delight readers – and his scribbles are exactly that – scribbles.
I hope that any child who reads this delights in Doodle Cat doing perhaps silly things to find out what a crayon is, but giving it a go nonetheless. The message that it’s okay to be silly, to draw imperfect scribbles of everything from his bum to pangolins, and even spaghetti, is an important one for anyone – child or adult – to learn.
Reviewed by Verushka Byrow
