Picture Book Monday: Sakimura
Jul. 28th, 2025 12:26 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
osprey_archerMy romp through the archives continues! This time, I read Zhenya Gay’s Sakimura, a picture book about Gay’s real-life Siamese cat Sakimura (usually called Saki). She drew this cat from life, and you can tell, because he’s just bursting with life, individuality, and cattish charm.
Saki, in the story, is a cat with everything a cat could want. He has a yellow water bowl and a green food bowl, which is filled daily with cubes of raw beef. (This was before the days of kibble, and a cat could live well.) He has a catnip mouse and a ball and a window where he can watch people pass by on the street.
But what he doesn’t have is a friend. And so Saki sneaks out and traipses away into the woods, where he tries to befriend a bird, and a squirrel, and three fat frogs, whereupon he falls into a pond with a splash and decides (after paddling frantically to shore) that perhaps the woods is not the best place to find a friend.
So he goes on, and finds a farmhouse, where he is too big to befriend the ducks and the chickens and too small to befriend the horses and cows. After a long drink of milk, he decides to take just one last look for a friend…
…whereupon he finds a tiger cat sunning on the porch! They take one look at each other and are bosom friends. They run and play on the lawn, and then when they are tired they curl up to sleep.
Saki, in the story, is a cat with everything a cat could want. He has a yellow water bowl and a green food bowl, which is filled daily with cubes of raw beef. (This was before the days of kibble, and a cat could live well.) He has a catnip mouse and a ball and a window where he can watch people pass by on the street.
But what he doesn’t have is a friend. And so Saki sneaks out and traipses away into the woods, where he tries to befriend a bird, and a squirrel, and three fat frogs, whereupon he falls into a pond with a splash and decides (after paddling frantically to shore) that perhaps the woods is not the best place to find a friend.
So he goes on, and finds a farmhouse, where he is too big to befriend the ducks and the chickens and too small to befriend the horses and cows. After a long drink of milk, he decides to take just one last look for a friend…
…whereupon he finds a tiger cat sunning on the porch! They take one look at each other and are bosom friends. They run and play on the lawn, and then when they are tired they curl up to sleep.
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Date: 2025-07-29 08:11 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-29 01:51 pm (UTC)Sakimura is a cat with CHARACTER, which bursts from every illustration.
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Date: 2025-07-29 05:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-29 05:50 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-29 07:21 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-07-31 10:38 pm (UTC)Tuesday we visited a friend in New Hampshire, and while we were walking around his town, we met a lovely family (young English mom married to an American dad, who wasn't present at the time) and two little kids, about three and five years old--being shepherded by their orange marmalade cat! "He's part dog," the mom explained. Very sweet. Jiji sometimes does that with us. Likes to make sure we head home ;-)
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Date: 2025-08-01 12:28 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-03 12:08 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2025-08-03 08:07 pm (UTC)