Something Fishy

The wonderful Polly Dunbar has done it again!  This is the funniest, cleverest picture book ever about a new sibling in the family, and the fact that it is a cat suffering the jealousy, removes the sting just that little bit from any older sibling who might be having this read as a preparation of what is to come.  Told in the first person by the cat (with a nice range of idiom), we see her in the bosom of her loving family, telling us that when she wants fish, she always gets it.  Except that now, she doesn’t!  Something strange is in the air.  Parcels that should have fish in them have baby clothes instead; toys suddenly appear; the cat’s room is re-decorated; Mum’s tum gets enormous.  What is a cat to do?  What she does is stand on mum’s tum and shout ‘fish’ over and over.  Mum doesn’t get the message and when mum and dad suddenly leave for what we know is the hospital, cat convinces herself they are going fishing.  She is shocked and horrified when the hoped-for fish turns out to be a baby.  Out into the rain she goes, sad and lonely, only to be pursued by her family with the biggest, fattest fish imaginable!  She feels loved once more, even though she must put up with the baby’s kisses.  Wonderfully imaginative with a cat that makes every facial expression possible in her fight to get her fish, this will appeal as much to parents as to children, and the shared laughter will be a delight.