Meet Cat, the hero of Deborah Underwood’s latest picture book, Here Comes the Easter Cat. This jaunty, bright-eyed little fellow is clearly going places. With so much attention on the Easter Bunny, Cat is getting grumpy and more than a tad jealous. So he decides to out-do the Easter Bunny by becoming the Easter Cat.
Dressed in a star-studded vest, a bowtie and a top hat, Easter Cat struts across the pages with spunk to spare. Instead of hopping bunny-style, he’ll deliver Easter eggs while straddling a bright, red motorcycle. He has enough panache to take on the Easter Bunny, and he easily steals the show.
Cat has plenty of style, but his penchant for napping poses a problem. He like to take seven naps a day, and when he learns the Easter Bunny never gets a chance to rest, the job seems impossible!
When the real Easter Bunny hops on the page and presents Cat with a chocolate egg, he is so delighted that he springs into action and finds a way to be a very helpful cat indeed. Readers will be sorry to see Cat dash off at the end of the book, but there’s a hint he’ll be back—with even grander plans in mind.
Claudia Rueda’s lively ink and colored-pencil drawings bring Cat to life as he dances, skips and cycles across this sparsely worded book. Underwood’s clever one-sided narrative draws in both reader and listener, and by the story’s end we love Easter Cat more than we’ve ever liked the Easter Bunny, despite those chocolate eggs. After all, who can resist an endearing little cat who only wants to make us proud?
Billie B. Little is the Founding Director of Discovery Center at Murfree Spring, a hands-on museum in Murfreesboro, Tennessee.
