folktale

You’ve prob­a­bly seen the smil­ing cat fig­urine with the wav­ing right front paw, but have you ever won­dered why it’s there? Told from the cat’s point of view, this charm­ing 32-page pic­ture book tells chil­dren one of the pos­si­ble sto­ries behind it with straight­for­ward prose and stun­ning art­work. It can be enjoyed both for the sto­ry itself and as an intro­duc­tion to or study of Japan­ese cul­ture. Back­mat­ter includes an author’s note and acknowl­edge­ments. High­ly recommended.
Book information:

• Title: I Am Tama, Lucky Cat: A Japan­ese Legend
• Author: Wendy Henrichs
• Illus­tra­tor: Yoshiko Jaeggi
• Pub­lish­er: Peachtree Publishers
• Pub­li­ca­tion date: August 1, 2011

See oth­er posts from this week’s Non­fic­tion Mon­day at Telling Kids the Truth: Writ­ing Non­fic­tion for Children.

Note: I viewed this dig­i­tal ARC via Net­Gal­ley and do not receive any com­pen­sa­tion for this review.