From two cats waltzing to twenty cats in a conga line, dancing felines take to the streets, the fire escapes, and the rooftops in this charming concept picture book that is part counting and part introduction to music, dance, and rhythm. The short rhyming text makes it a perfect read-aloud treat, and with vivid illustrations from a breakout DreamWorks animator, readers and listeners alike will be thrilled to see what happens one night on Easy Street when a pair of cats start to groove to the beat.
Cats' Night Out (Paula Wiseman Books)
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Editorial Reviews
From Booklist
It’s Saturday night on Easy Street, and this jazzy counting book reveals that the city’s hot spots are its rooftops, fire escapes, and alleyways, where pairs of cool kitties dance the night away. As music rises into the night air, 2 cats samba in white, while nearby 4 more felines boogie in saddle shoes and poodle skirts, and still 6 more tango in capes on fire escapes. Their numbers increase, until finally, when 20 hep cats conga on clotheslines, the neighbors revolt. Stutson’s syncopated rhymes sport fun flourishes of dance and fashion vocabulary (“Twelve town tabbies do the twist, / swinging their hips in dotted Swiss”) and a catchy refrain, but it’s Klassen’s atmospheric, retro illustrations that take the lead. The stellar digitally rendered illustrations in a muted gray and brown palette may resonate more with urban sophisticates than children learning their numbers, but the detailed cityscapes, hidden numbers, and appealing big-city cats will give little ones plenty to explore. Preschool-Kindergarten. --Kristen McKulski
Review
“Klassen’s eye-catching digitally rendered urban streetscapes resemble the sets of classic musical theater…The subtle charms of this lighter-than-air confection should delight young connoisseurs of dance and style. —School Library Journal
"the detailed cityscapes, hidden numbers, and appealing big-city cats will give little ones plenty to explore."—Booklist
"a comely counting book."—Kirkus
"...Klassen’s retro-looking illustrations of a posse of cool cats, in pale pink tuxedos and poodle skirts, are fun to look at. Lights dimly glow in the background from elegant French casements and alley tenements alike, as though the black, white and gray cats had the free run of the city."--New York Times, August 15th 2010
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More About the Author
Caroline was born in New York City, grew up on Long Island, and now lives in beautiful Colorado. She's the author of ten published picture books. When she's not writing or reading, she loves taking walks with her dog Seymour. She also has fun storytelling as a member of the Spellbinders. Whenever she can, she tutors elementary school students and does presentations during school visits.
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6 of 6 people found the following review helpful
Format:Hardcover
Cats that go out to dance at night. I know I've seen this trope done before, but it's hard to remember where. I suppose "The Alley Cat's Meow" by Kathi Appelt is the best example. Still, considering how graceful and lithe cats tend to be, you'd think it would be a more common occurrence in your average picture book fare. As it stands I think that "Cats' Night Out" by Caroline Stutson is a rare and wonderful little book, and not just because it involves fancy dance felines. This book has moves. It pops and snaps and works in not just a couple of kitties tripping the light fantastic but also a storyline that counts by twos. Add in an illustrator that, hands down, has created my favorite cat-related images of 2010, and you've got yourself one of heckuva fancy feast.
"From the alley, music drifts. / Shadows sway to a trumpet riff." Light dims as a sun sinks low between two buildings. Into this twilight "Two cats samba, dressed in white, / on the rooftop Saturday night." Then it's four cats doing the boogie, six cats tango, and eight cats look simply marvelous tapping in their pink tuxedos and canvas spats. These terpsichorean tabbies continue to multiply by twos until finally, when "Twenty conga left and right / in splashy florals, plaids, and stripes," the neighbors canst stands it no more! Trying to get some sleep they tell the cats to shut down the dancing, which they do... until the sun sets the next night. Then, "Two cats waltz by neon light / in black half-masks on Sunday night."
I know that if you're a children's librarian like myself then your children's room has counting books galore. Oh, the counting books! Can't take a sharp stick and hit a shelf without stabbing a counting book in the process (which I don't recommend). Now how about picture books that count by twos? Not exactly common, wouldn't you agree? Maybe it's a stretch to say that this book could teach kids their multiplication tables, but at the very least it fills a gap in our collections.
All that aside, Caroline Stutson's rhymes and wordplay alone are delightful. First off, she had to come up with a list of dances that would look good on a page. She went with samba, boogie, tango, tap, line dance, twist, fox-trot, rumba, polka, conga, and waltz. Excellent choices one and all. Next, she had to make them rhyme, scan, and read in an amusing fashion. So the repeated line, "In the city, / windows light. / How many cats / will dance tonight?" sets the pace. On the fun side, we get to hear about how the rumba cats are "twitching silk bottoms through the park" while the tap cats, "tip bowler hats in pink tuxedos, canvas spats." It all begs for some kinda illustrator...
... enter John Klassen. Sporting clientele as varied as the Coraline movie to U2 to the 2010 Winter Olympics, Klassen's an animator by trade. A lot of animators try to cross over into picture books, with varied results. If I'm gonna be frank with you, not many of them fully commit to it. They figure a picture book can't be that different from a storyboard whipped off for an animated sequence, so they'll do the minimum amount of work and leave it at that. I don't get that feeling from Klassen here. First off, the man draws a mean cat. Not "mean" as in "nasty" but "mean" as in "slick". These little digitless guys are all rounded limbs and triangular ears and mouths. Only once in this book are they ever seen walking on all fours. For the most part they're sashaying to the beat of their own particular drums. These cats are totally in the zone. Their eyes only open when the sleep-deprived humans give them how to and what for. The artistic style is evocative as well. These cats dance in a kind of city of the past. All clothes lines strung between apartments and sky-high diner signs. Klassen even works in little hidden number in each dance spread. Kids will then have a chance to try and spot the numbers that lurks over, under, and near the capering cats. I found eighteen to be particularly difficult.
Klassen renders this book digitally, giving the city a gritty feel that I haven't really noticed in a picture book to this extent since the days of Ezra Jack Keats. Keats wasn't afraid to really glorify a city's graffiti and rust. There is no graffiti in this mod little number, but there is a kind of layer of sweet city smog that covers everything. Buildings get lost in a haze of a dying day. Klassen's use of light is also particularly nice. I love the way the sky moves from lighter to darker shades of gray as the night progresses. I adore that shock of greenish light that comes from fox-trotting beneath a plethora of electric bulbs. And then there are the cats themselves. They've such energy and personality for critters so small and simple. I love how one will thrust out its hips while dancing the twist while another might wear kitty-sized lederhosen. And cats doing the Elvis guitar strum arm move? Nothing but awwww.
I suppose that you could probably raise some concerns about the depiction of the individual dances. Can you really dance a polka holding hands in a line? Do tangos actually include some of the moves we're seeing here? Sometimes you find yourself wishing the cats weren't so rigidly tied to the shape of their little bodies, but I don't think anyone can argue that any dance is actually all that wrong. Cats will be cats, after all.
So let's count `em down here. You've got yourself a book that has an artistry to it, both in terms of the wordplay and the pictures themselves. The book has hidden elements that will keep a lot of kids engaged. It rhymes beautifully, it scans like a dream, and it counts by twos, which is rare. All in all, I think you've got yourself a pretty good book. Hand it on over to fans of dance, fans of cats, fans of dancing cats, and fans of cattish dancing. Nobody puts these kitties in a corner.
Ages 4-8
"From the alley, music drifts. / Shadows sway to a trumpet riff." Light dims as a sun sinks low between two buildings. Into this twilight "Two cats samba, dressed in white, / on the rooftop Saturday night." Then it's four cats doing the boogie, six cats tango, and eight cats look simply marvelous tapping in their pink tuxedos and canvas spats. These terpsichorean tabbies continue to multiply by twos until finally, when "Twenty conga left and right / in splashy florals, plaids, and stripes," the neighbors canst stands it no more! Trying to get some sleep they tell the cats to shut down the dancing, which they do... until the sun sets the next night. Then, "Two cats waltz by neon light / in black half-masks on Sunday night."
I know that if you're a children's librarian like myself then your children's room has counting books galore. Oh, the counting books! Can't take a sharp stick and hit a shelf without stabbing a counting book in the process (which I don't recommend). Now how about picture books that count by twos? Not exactly common, wouldn't you agree? Maybe it's a stretch to say that this book could teach kids their multiplication tables, but at the very least it fills a gap in our collections.
All that aside, Caroline Stutson's rhymes and wordplay alone are delightful. First off, she had to come up with a list of dances that would look good on a page. She went with samba, boogie, tango, tap, line dance, twist, fox-trot, rumba, polka, conga, and waltz. Excellent choices one and all. Next, she had to make them rhyme, scan, and read in an amusing fashion. So the repeated line, "In the city, / windows light. / How many cats / will dance tonight?" sets the pace. On the fun side, we get to hear about how the rumba cats are "twitching silk bottoms through the park" while the tap cats, "tip bowler hats in pink tuxedos, canvas spats." It all begs for some kinda illustrator...
... enter John Klassen. Sporting clientele as varied as the Coraline movie to U2 to the 2010 Winter Olympics, Klassen's an animator by trade. A lot of animators try to cross over into picture books, with varied results. If I'm gonna be frank with you, not many of them fully commit to it. They figure a picture book can't be that different from a storyboard whipped off for an animated sequence, so they'll do the minimum amount of work and leave it at that. I don't get that feeling from Klassen here. First off, the man draws a mean cat. Not "mean" as in "nasty" but "mean" as in "slick". These little digitless guys are all rounded limbs and triangular ears and mouths. Only once in this book are they ever seen walking on all fours. For the most part they're sashaying to the beat of their own particular drums. These cats are totally in the zone. Their eyes only open when the sleep-deprived humans give them how to and what for. The artistic style is evocative as well. These cats dance in a kind of city of the past. All clothes lines strung between apartments and sky-high diner signs. Klassen even works in little hidden number in each dance spread. Kids will then have a chance to try and spot the numbers that lurks over, under, and near the capering cats. I found eighteen to be particularly difficult.
Klassen renders this book digitally, giving the city a gritty feel that I haven't really noticed in a picture book to this extent since the days of Ezra Jack Keats. Keats wasn't afraid to really glorify a city's graffiti and rust. There is no graffiti in this mod little number, but there is a kind of layer of sweet city smog that covers everything. Buildings get lost in a haze of a dying day. Klassen's use of light is also particularly nice. I love the way the sky moves from lighter to darker shades of gray as the night progresses. I adore that shock of greenish light that comes from fox-trotting beneath a plethora of electric bulbs. And then there are the cats themselves. They've such energy and personality for critters so small and simple. I love how one will thrust out its hips while dancing the twist while another might wear kitty-sized lederhosen. And cats doing the Elvis guitar strum arm move? Nothing but awwww.
I suppose that you could probably raise some concerns about the depiction of the individual dances. Can you really dance a polka holding hands in a line? Do tangos actually include some of the moves we're seeing here? Sometimes you find yourself wishing the cats weren't so rigidly tied to the shape of their little bodies, but I don't think anyone can argue that any dance is actually all that wrong. Cats will be cats, after all.
So let's count `em down here. You've got yourself a book that has an artistry to it, both in terms of the wordplay and the pictures themselves. The book has hidden elements that will keep a lot of kids engaged. It rhymes beautifully, it scans like a dream, and it counts by twos, which is rare. All in all, I think you've got yourself a pretty good book. Hand it on over to fans of dance, fans of cats, fans of dancing cats, and fans of cattish dancing. Nobody puts these kitties in a corner.
Ages 4-8
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful
By souzamama
Format:Hardcover
My 10 month old daughter can't get enough of this book and wants to read it over and over! I love that it features a variety of dances from tap to samba to polka. We make the music sounds to go with each dance... it's a great learning opportunity for little musical minds.
Creative and cute, an Instant hit between the concept and the prose.
Creative and cute, an Instant hit between the concept and the prose.
By A. Alexander
Format:Hardcover|Amazon Verified Purchase
A cute story about a bunch of dancing cats recounted with poetic prose. Nice illustrations. The kind of book you look at in the library with your kids, but don't check it out. For a much more engaging cat story, see "It's a Secret."
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