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Picture Book Monday: Square Cat
Jan. 25th, 2016 05:48 pmI almost mended a copy of Olivia today, but at the last minute we decided its condition was too poor for repairing, so into the recycling it went. :( Hopefully another Olivia will show up soon; I really want to read this book.
I did read Elizabeth Schoonmacher's Square Cat, which is about Euly, a square cat in a world of round cats. It's a hard life, being a square cat. She looks silly in stripes. She's invisible in rooms with lots of right angles. She tips over, and - being square - she's just kind of stuck there. At first Euly's friends try to make her feel more round, so she'll feel like she fits in; when that doesn't work, they put on cardboard boxes, and they all experience the square cat life together, at which point Euly realizes that being square has its advantages. At the end, they all flop down together and look at the sky, which is, the book tells us, a view "only a square cat could have."
I guess maybe the round cats would roll away if they tried to lie down and look at the sky. Or something.
There are many things I love about picture books, but one of the things I find irritating about them is that they can be so relentlessly upbeat. Every cloud has a silver lining. When one door closes, a vast panoramic window with a view of the Grand Canyon opens. The ugly duckling will always turn into a swan, and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer will always save the day in the end.
And I like upbeat stories, I do. But in the aggregate, this relentless positivity begins to feel emotionally dishonest. I realize that picture book authors don't want to discourage the three-year-olds of the world, many of whom will in fact outgrow their ugly duckling stages and do just fine, but at the same time, I feel like it would be good if these books would occasionally allow disappointments to actually be disappointing.
Maybe being a square cat is tough, but Euly has managed to acquire two awesome cat friends who want nothing more than to cheer her up. Isn't that happy ending enough without pretending that round cats are incapable of looking up at the sky?
I did read Elizabeth Schoonmacher's Square Cat, which is about Euly, a square cat in a world of round cats. It's a hard life, being a square cat. She looks silly in stripes. She's invisible in rooms with lots of right angles. She tips over, and - being square - she's just kind of stuck there. At first Euly's friends try to make her feel more round, so she'll feel like she fits in; when that doesn't work, they put on cardboard boxes, and they all experience the square cat life together, at which point Euly realizes that being square has its advantages. At the end, they all flop down together and look at the sky, which is, the book tells us, a view "only a square cat could have."
I guess maybe the round cats would roll away if they tried to lie down and look at the sky. Or something.
There are many things I love about picture books, but one of the things I find irritating about them is that they can be so relentlessly upbeat. Every cloud has a silver lining. When one door closes, a vast panoramic window with a view of the Grand Canyon opens. The ugly duckling will always turn into a swan, and Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer will always save the day in the end.
And I like upbeat stories, I do. But in the aggregate, this relentless positivity begins to feel emotionally dishonest. I realize that picture book authors don't want to discourage the three-year-olds of the world, many of whom will in fact outgrow their ugly duckling stages and do just fine, but at the same time, I feel like it would be good if these books would occasionally allow disappointments to actually be disappointing.
Maybe being a square cat is tough, but Euly has managed to acquire two awesome cat friends who want nothing more than to cheer her up. Isn't that happy ending enough without pretending that round cats are incapable of looking up at the sky?
