Boris the Cat: The Little Cat with Big Ideas
by Erwin Moser; illus. by the author; trans. from German by Alistair Beaton
Primary, Intermediate    NorthSouth    136 pp.    g
11/21    978-0-7358-4454-4    $26.00

Over the course of the seasons, in more than sixty mini-narratives each consisting of six tidy panels, we hang out with Boris, a striped orange cat, and his forest friends. Each story presents a challenge, the solution for which involves ­creativity, lateral thinking, and kindness. Because Holly the hedgehog can’t go skating due to a sprained ankle, for example, her friends attach skates to her armchair and push her around the lake. Some of the adventures include such tried-and-true folktale dilemmas as magic power gone awry and a series of ill-advised trades. Part joke, part puzzle, part poem, part koan, these tiny stories are reminiscent, in their quiet humor, of another European import, Coudray’s Benjamin (or Bigby) Bear books (most recently rev. 3/19). For the apprentice reader, Boris provides the potential for two kinds of satisfaction — completing an entire story on a single spread and getting to know a whole world with its cast of characters as the stories accumulate. Here’s Alex the frog again. Of course he’ll be delighted with Boris’s castoff bike; we already know he’s a bit of a hoarder. And here’s Holly with yet another new mechanical invention. This time it’s a rocket sled powered by fireworks…uh-oh. An affectionate appendix by fellow Austrian picture-book writer Heinz Janisch introduces a new audience of readers to late author Moser.

From the January/February 2022 issue of The Horn Book Magazine.