The Adventures of the Owl and the Pussycat

Coral Rumble

Two children and their imaginations set sail from their living room on a voyage around the world! Read along as they spy an extraordinary array of characters doing even more extraordinary things…? With bright, fresh illustrations and a playful style, this rhyming book, based on the classic Edward Lear poem The Owl and the Pussycat, is a wonderfully quirky adventure.?
There can be something so magical about a picture book. It has the ability to really capture a child’s imagination and keep them entertained as they hear the words, see the pictures and put two and two together. But it’s not that easy to create a book that does this. Writing good picture books is a lot more difficult than it sounds but sometimes an author just manages to do exactly what we all want from a picture book. This is what has happened with The Adventures of the Owl and the Pussycat. Inspired by the original poem, this book follows a boy and a girl as they sit in a cupboard box and imagine what they would come across if they were the owl and the pussycat in a ship. It is imaginative and inspirational.
While I sadly did not get a chance to test this book out on my niece, I am certain that she would have absolutely loved it. At the moment she is completely obsessed with Finding Nemo and so I am positive that this sea-faring adventure book would have been well-received. But I also believe that she would have loved it because it contains an exciting plot. It is about another girl and boy having imaginative play – something that she absolutely loves doing herself. It is a book that simply celebrates being a child.
As if all of that wasn’t enough, this book is also covered in absolutely stunning illustrations. Charlotte Cooke has done a fantastic job of bringing this story to life with vibrant and colourful images that every child will love looking at. In each one there is an owl and a pussycat watching either from afar or from up close and I can imagine that it will be a lot of fun for the child reader to work out where they are and what exactly they are up to! This extra addition to this picture book is really what brings it into it’s own and makes it such a wonderfully magic book to read.
This book gets my thumbs up and I am very much looking forward to sharing it with my niece in the coming days!
Reviewed by Faye