The Cat wants Cuddles
Written by P Crumble, published by Scholastic 2018
** Young Readers’ Book Award for Picture Books
** Notable Book, Children’s Book Council Book of the Year Awards 2018
“You’ll love Kevin. Those wicked green eyes and swishing tail fill every page. He’s clever and conniving and usually gets what he wants. He says only a few words at a time, but the big, bright illustrations say the rest.”
Last year, Scholastic told me they were planning another book about Kevin the Cat. Immediately I started to look forward to getting the text. Kevin is great fun to draw, especially as I’m not a ‘cat person’. Cats confuse me. I channel this confusion, and my suspicion that cats themselves don’t know what they want, into my depiction of Kevin.
Kevin’s appearance is based on ‘Bluey’, the cat next door to us. Bluey goes through episodes where she insists on visiting our family every morning and aggressively demanding affection. Once one us has reluctantly given up our lap, there’s an indeterminate period of gingerly petting her… before she lashes out and leaps away with a ‘how dare you!’ in her flashing green eyes.
“WHAT does that ^%*& cat want?” protests the wounded party. “I don’t think she knows”, is the usual answer.
When I received the text for ‘The Cat Wants Cuddles’ I wasn’t disappointed. Kevin does NOT want cuddles, then he does, then he doesn’t. “OoOOH yes, I know what to do with THIS one!” I thought.
Here’s my initial storyboard.
Here are some roughs, which were discarded later as we rearranged the spreads:
And some roughs into finals, where the dog character changed (NOW – I AM a dog person! I feel sympathetic towards this dog), and the illustrations are slowly finessed:
FROM ‘THE CAT WANTS CUDDLES’ BY P CRUMBLE AND LUCINDA GIFFORD. TEXT COPYRIGHT © P CRUMBLE 2017. ILLUSTRATIONS COPYRIGHT © LUCINDA GIFFORD 2017. FIRST PUBLISHED BY SCHOLASTIC AUSTRALIA 2017.
With the simple, graphic backgrounds and the colours, characters and textures already determined from the previous book (‘The Cat Wants Custard’), ‘The Cat Wants Cuddles’ was straightforward to tackle and loads of fun! I do hope you enjoy the book.
