STORM CATS

Though they lived next door, the black female and white male have never met until one night when these felines flee together from lightning strikes, raging wind, and thundering rain to the relative safety of a storm drain; their neighboring young owners have never met either until the after-storm reality hits: their pets are missing. The two new friends search for their pets everywhere; they don’t know a downed tree has trapped them. Doyle (Who Is Jesse Flood?, p. 1126, etc.) reflects a genius in offering a simply rhythmic, rhyming text, perfectly directed to his intended audience. The appealing tale warmly counts the many ways pet owners love cats, slowly introducing the pets and their owners and then picking up the pace to the culminating sweet end. Pastel-hued watercolors capture the details of each child’s life in vignettes with wide borders, but they work equally well to reflect the drama of the storm on double-paged spreads. When they find and free the pets, their owners clean, feed, and care for them and the new friendship ultimately brings both families together to admire the ultimate result: four winsome kittens. (Picture book. 3-6)