From School Library Journal
Grade 3-4?A moving story set against the blue skies and sparkling seas of Galveston Island, Texas. Bimmi Ladouce, a young Creole boy, searches for his scrappy gray cat, Crabmeat. After a breakfast of cornbread and fried fish, he explores the oyster-shell road and discovers a small gray body under a tree. Mama helps him to bury his pet in a sand dune. Grieving, Bimmi takes his fishing pole to the public pier, where the summer visitors go. On the way he finds a dainty long-haired cat and names it Kitty-Louise. The boy desperately wants to keep her, but he knows someone will miss her as much as he misses Crabmeat. Reluctantly, Bimmi heads for the rental cottages, where he finds the cat's owner as well as an unexpected friend. Stewart's well-told story is filled with poetic images of island life, the gentle cadence of Bimmi and his mother's dialogue, and a realistic spectrum of feelings. The brief chapters alternate with Ransome's sun-splashed half- and full-page oil paintings. The body language and facial expressions of the characters add emotional nuances to the text; in one scene, Mama's unspoken concern about her son is written on her face; in another, Bimmi looks at the newly found cat with a mixture of joy and trepidation. With a happy ending, this warm story of loss, healing, and new friendship comes full circle.?Joy Fleishhacker, School Library Journal
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Booklist
Gr. 3^-4, younger for reading aloud. A Creole boy living on Galveston Island in the Gulf of Mexico, Bimmi goes out looking for his cat, Crabmeat, and finds him lying dead beside a coconut palm. Later, as he sits crying over his loss, another little cat comes up and befriends him. Naming her Kitty-Louise, Bimmi takes her home. When he realizes that someone may be missing her as much as he misses Crabmeat, Bimmi looks for Kitty-Louise's owner. His search brings an unexpected reward. The occasional use of Creole dialect may trip up younger readers, but the rhythmic, colloquial speech reads aloud well within the tautly written text. Each turn of the page brings another full-page (occasionally double-page) illustration. These beautifully crafted oil paintings interpret the settings, characters, and emotions with dignity. Carolyn Phelan
