Have You Seen My Cat? [Paperback]

Eric Carle (Author, Illustrator)

Book Description

Release date: September 1, 1997 | Age Range: 3 and up | Series: Aladdin Picture Books

A little boy's cat is missing, and he embarks on a fantastic round-the-world quest to find his lost pet. Along the way, he meets lots of interesting people and sees many beautiful members of the cat family, including lions and tigers and panthers. But over and over again he has to say "This is not my cat!" until at last he finds the cat he's looking for -- who has a delightful surprise for him.

Eric Carle's simple, repetitive text and distinctive cut-paper illustrations make this modern classic a book to treasure.

Editorial Reviews

About the Author

Eric Carle is the author and illustrator of more than seventy books for children, many of them bestsellers. Born in Syracuse, New York, he moved to Germany with his parents when he was six years old. He studied at the Academy of Graphic Arts in Stuttgart before returning to the United States, where he worked as a graphic designer for The New York Times and later as art director for an international advertising agency. His first two books, 1,2,3 to the Zoo and The Very Hungry Caterpillar, gained him immediate international recognition. The latter title, now considered a modern classic, has sold more than 30 million copies and has been translated into forty-eight languages. Eric Carle and his wife, Barbara, divide their time between the mountains of North Carolina and the Florida Keys.

Product Details

• Age Range: 3 and up
  
• Paperback: 28 pages
• Publisher: Aladdin (September 1, 1997)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 9780689817311
• ISBN-13: 978-0689817311
• ASIN: 0689817312
• Product Dimensions: 7.4 x 10.2 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 2.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (43 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #57,253 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Eric Carle is acclaimed and beloved as the creator of brilliantly illustrated and innovatively designed picture books for young children.


Eric was born in Syracuse, New York, in 1929, and moved with his parents to Germany when he was six years old. After graduating from art school, he returned to America, the land of his happiest childhood memories, and found work as a graphic designer.


After seeing an advertisement designed by Eric, respected educator and author, Bill Martin Jr, called to ask him to illustrate a story he had written. Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?, with its distinctive collage style, was the result of their collaboration. This favorite was the beginning of Eric Carle's true career. Soon Eric was writing his own stories, developing a close bond with Ann Beneduce, the founder of Philomel Books, who would be his editor for nearly 40 years. In 1969 they published the celebrated classic, The Very Hungry Caterpillar, which has eaten its way into the hearts of literally millions of children all over the world and has been translated into more than 30 languages. Since this beginning, Eric Carle has illustrated more than seventy books, many best sellers, most of which he also wrote.


The secret of Eric Carle's books' appeal lies in his intuitive understanding of and respect for children, who sense in him instinctively someone who shares their most cherished thoughts and emotions. He says "I believe the passage from home to school is the second biggest trauma of childhood; the first is, of course, being born.
Indeed, in both cases we leave a place of warmth and protection for one that is unknown. The unknown often brings fear with it. In my books I try to counteract this fear, to replace it with a positive message. I believe that children are naturally creative and eager to learn. I want to show them that learning is really both fascinating and fun."


Eric Carle has two grown-up children, a son and a daughter. He and his wife Barbara divide their time between Massachusetts and Florida.

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 17 people found the following review helpful

4.0 out of 5 stars Adventuresome Choice! My Baby Loves It! July 1, 2006

By Jennifer Juday VINE™ VOICE

Format:Board book

HAVE YOU SEEN MY CAT? is now a favorite at our house. It did not excite me when I received it as a shower gift. I said something polite, and thought that we would not get much use out of it. I was not wild about Eric Carle's collage-based pictures, and the very simple text seemed dull. However, I am not the audience for this book. My 10-˝ month old baby tells me that HAVE YOU SEEN MY CAT? is a lot of fun! Reading it at his speed has taught me to love it too!

I am also happy to note that an older baby we know, close to two years old, also likes this book. So it is going to be a good book for a while!

The illustrations are very colorful, and overall a little more detailed than THE VERY HUNGRY CATERPILLAR, the book that taught me to love Eric Carle's work. They look like collages with details added in crayon and pencil. My baby loves these pictures. I think it is the combination of color, simple lines and detail.

The text initially seems way too simple. The question and reply "Have you seen my cat?" and "This is not my cat!" are repeated nine times in the book. At the end, of course, the boy finds his cat and says, "This is my cat!" This initially seemed insanely dull, but Carle is an artist, and there is method to his madness.

If you just focus on the words, HAVE YOU SEEN MY CAT? is monotonous. However, there is a lot of room here to talk about what we are seeing. If you follow the story told in the pictures, you see that the boy takes a trip around the world looking for his cat. The people we ask for the cat are: a businessman, an American cowboy, a Mexican man on a burro, a South American Indian man, two African women, an Arab in the desert, a man from India who looks to be a farmer, a Persian prince, and finally a man in a park with his wife and child. Each person directs us to a cat. Before we find the boy's cat, we see (I think) a lion, a bobcat, a cougar, a jaguar, a black leopard, a cheetah, a tiger, and a Persian cat. (I had to go read up on kinds of cats and where they are found.) Eventually we find the boy's cat, a big mama cat with six kittens.

So, the book looks simple, but it has a more complex story in the pictures. I just needed to educate myself a bit to follow it and to tell it to my baby as we read it. This is not the first or last time that being a parent will drive me to better educate myself, I am sure!

I did not really start to "get" HAVE YOU SEEN MY CAT? until I read it at my baby's speed. He wanted to spend time looking at those bewitching pictures. If you talk to your baby about the whole story, there is a lot more to say. My baby loves going through the book slowly with me, looking at all the different kinds of cats as I name them for him.

My baby pulls HAVE YOU SEEN MY CAT? out of the basket to read regularly. Now that I can talk about the whole story, I like it too!

19 of 20 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars Great for beginning readers September 7, 2000

By A Customer

Format:Paperback

I agree with other reviewers that this is a good read-aloud for very young children. But just because the text is so repetitive doesn't mean it is inappropriate for beginning readers. I teach kindergarten and nearly all of the words in the book are sight words, common words the students have to know on sight without sounding them out. The repetitive text also builds confidence in children who are learning to read. This is a book that your child can read to you. On top of all this, Eric Carle's illustrations are so great. I gave this book to my niece for her sixth birthday and her seven year old sister said, "Ooooh, that's a great book!" Don't stop reading this book to your child just because you think it's too easy, or because you're bored with it.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful

5.0 out of 5 stars That's not MY cat -- but it IS my book! October 8, 2003

By Karla

Format:Hardcover

Ok, so I'm getting closer to 30 than I am to 3, but as a lifetime lover of Eric Carle books and a die-hard cat person, I loved this book. I first encountered it in an undergraduate children's lit. class during my senior year in college. From there, I took the book home to my roommates (two guys and another gal) and it became a permanent resident on the coffee table!

It was great to pick up after a long day -- even just to look at Carle's whimsical art work. But, more importantly, the memorable line "that's not MY cat," became the motto of our household. It didn't matter if the subject was a mismatched sock or an extra plate of leftovers in the fridge -- my roommates would jubilantly yell out "that's not MY cat!"

Have You Seen My Cat is a great book for the kid in all of us -- even if you don't have a special child to read to, I highly recommend this book.