Goldfish, cat spawn two books
Today, a look at two illustrators who, independent of each other, tackled the same subject — interaction between a pet cat and goldfish — but produced drastically different picture books.
Britain’s Michael Foreman, with his familiar rough pencil line and luminous watercolours, gives us Friends (Andersen Press, 26 pages, $22.95),a book squarely aimed at the preschool crowd. Text is minimal, straightforward, and far from poetic, but it serves its purpose, setting up the storyline and delivering a powerful and heartfelt message: that friendship can be valued above adventure.
A black-and-white cat, who knows he’s lucky because he can “wander wild and free, far and wide,” decides to share the world with his friend Bubbles, the goldfish, by carrying him out in a seethrough bucket. Grasping the handle between his teeth, the cat shows him the pond, then the river and, ultimately, “the wide, wide sea.” But when the cat urges his friend to “dive in,” Bubbles decides he’s happy with the life he’s got. True, there may be “lots of fish in the sea,” he tells the surprised cat, “but I might never find a friend like you.” They remain house pets who occasionally visit the wider world, just to get an eyeful of what’s out there — all the while recognizing the value of what they have in each other, at home.
Montreal’s Marianne Dubuc, meanwhile, gives us a very different tale in The Sea (Officina Libraria, 92 pages, $21.95), a wordless picture book about another blackand-white cat who eyes the goldfish bowl in his home but with less friendly intentions. When he reaches in for what he no doubt believes will be a tasty meal, the frightened but resourceful fish leaps out of the bowl and right through an open window. Its fins become wings and the nowflying fish takes off while the cat gives chase through their neighbourhood, into space, over the moon, and ultimately, to the wide, wide sea that Bubbles and his friend also encountered. In this case, however, the fish dives in and swims away, leaving the frustrated feline sitting on a dock, watching the sun go down.
Originally published in French five years ago (although, as a wordless picture book, we’re not talking a whole lot of translation here; basically, La mer became The Sea), Dubuc’s book — executed in black and white, with red accents — is the more sophisticated of the two and, as such, should appeal to a wider age range. But Foreman’s colourful paintings, which manage to be cute without being cloying, make his book perfect for ages 2 to 5. The Art of the Picture Book, an exhibit now on display at the Montreal Museum of Fine Arts, features more than 80 original pieces, many of them by Quebec artists, and runs to Oct. 14. All the art will be sold at a live auction on Oct. 16 to benefit the Canadian Children’s Book Centre. To preview the illustrations or to purchase tickets for the auction, visit www.bookcentre.ca/ artauction