How To: How to Give Your Cat A Bath (In FIve Easy Steps) by Nicola Winstanley

STEP ONE: Fill the bath tub with warm water.

That's too much water!

Oops.

The water should come up to the cat's knees.

KNEES?

Cats have knees? (Who knew?)

The little girl with pom-pom ponytails has a lit-tle trouble following these five easy steps. Her cat, Mr. Flea, has no intention of getting wet. He's the mysterious disappearing cat in two flicks of a cat's whiskers.

Now where is he?

Where's that manual for How to Find Your Cat?

Our little pet care student decides to change Step One to having some cookies and milk to settle frazzled nerves! OOPS! She drops the tray!

The cat kindly laps up the spilled milk. But by now the water in the tub is too cold. Meeowwrrr! Mr. Fleas makes that more than evident! More hot water is needed.

STEP FOUR: Hold the cat in one arm and turn on the tap with other. OOOOOPS!

Chase cat downstairs!

Return to bathroom and mop floor. Our girl needs another cookie to quiet her nerves.

Meanwhile the unflappable Mr. Flea re-writes the procedure:

STEP ONE: Wait quietly while your cat licks himself clean.

Nicola Winstanley's little HOW-TO manual, How to Give Your Cat a Bath: in Five Easy Steps (Tundra Books, 2019), offers the wisdom of letting the cat take care of cleanliness. Face it, cat owners: You may indeed succeed in sousing your cat in soapy water, scrubbing him clean, and blowing him dry so that he is one perfectly sterile cat, but be forewarned: he's going to spend the rest of the day giving himself a cat spit bath all over, right down to the tip of his tail!

Winstanley's hilarious story of pet care will win chuckles from primary readers who will find the text easy going, with how-to steps designed in boldface font and the rest in a less austere font. John Martz' spare black-line drawings and bright colors make for fun page turning.

"The inevitable ending will delight both children and adults and this title will be requested over and over.” says Booklist's starred review.

For kids ready for beginning chapter books, share this one with Nick Bruel's Bad Kitty Gets a Bath (read review here).