Do It Yourself: Meeow and the Big Box by Sebastian Brown

Meeow is a black cat.

Hello, Meeow.

Meeow likes the color red.

Meeow has some red paint.

Meeow paints the brown box red.

Tension builds as we watch cute little Meeow, wearing his jaunty red scarf, as he paints a plain-jane brown cardboard box red, cuts out a square from one side with his green scissors ("Be careful, Meeow!"), and brings in a big green block, an orange chair, and a two-handled blue mug. What can Meeow be making?

In Sebastien Braun's charming little toddler book, the child is drawn into the project, wondering what will emerge from Meeow's imagination. Will it be a house? A train? A car? Well, it could become any one of these things, but the final product turns out to be Meeow's concept of a fire engine, and on the final page we see the fire engine as Meeow has seen it all along, complete with ladders, lights--and a loud siren.

Nee-naw! Nee-naw!

Clever Meeow!

Sebastien Braun, illustrator of Jane Yolen's latest, Dimity Duck, steps out with his second story about his creative cat character, Meeow and the Big Box. Braun tucks a lesson in colors into his newest book, a perfect toddler lap book which is sure to spark imaginative play among the very young.

Combine this one with Braun's earlier companion book Meeow and the Little Chairs. and especially Antoinette Portis' Theodore Seuss Geisel Honor Award-winning Not a Box, reviewed here.