Cat Secrets by Jef Czekaj

This book is for cats only, so if you want to read it you will have to prove that you are, in fact, a cat.  The cats in the book are hard to deceive.  If you keep turning the pages, they will be on to the fact that you are not a cat at all.  They will test you.  You will have to meow.  You will have to purr.  Can you stretch like a cat too? And then the final test.  Can you nap like a cat?  This is a book that happily breaks down the fourth wall, celebrating silliness through a very interactive story line. 

Czekaj follows the likes of Mo Willems and one of my childhood favorites, The Monster at the End of This Book, as he allows the audience into the book and to feel as if they have input into the storyline.  His very simple illustrations have a modern feel to them.  They let the humor stand on its own and don’t oversell it at all. 

This is a book that will read aloud extremely well.  It’s one that I would save for that final book of a story time because it will stop the wiggles immediately.  Appropriate for ages 2-4.

Also reviewed by 100 Scope Notes and Creative Literacy.