September 11, 2017
Droll mixed-media art belies a perky narrative in Olson’s story of a girl and her cat, best friends who don’t always see eye to eye. “We love spending time together doing all of our favorite things,” chirps narrator Mia, who has planned a morning filled with “tons of fun.” On the agenda are a tea party (Mr. Fluffernutter, her cat, sits grumpily at the table wearing rouge and a wide-brimmed straw hat), playing dress-up (he cheerlessly sports a tiara, sunglasses, and fur boa), and swimming (submerged up to his chin, the scowling feline is kept afloat by a pair of swimmies). After the cat’s patience wears out, and he stalks off to go stare at the goldfish bowl, Mia sniffs that they will each have more fun alone, which isn’t the case, naturally. With small tweaks to her characters’ facial expressions, Olson (the Ninja Bunny books) evokes a panoply of emotions to comical and poignant effect. Without getting didactic, she imparts a clear message about the benefits of compromising and respecting differences. Ages 3–7. Agent: Kerry Sparks, Levine Greenberg Rostan Literary.
July 1, 2017
Best friends do everything together...right?"Mr. Fluffernutter and I are best friends. // We love spending time together / doing all of our favorite things." A light-skinned girl with two puffy, pompom ponytails and her Siamese cat, Mr. Fluffernutter, draw pictures (he bats at the crayons) and chase butterflies. The tea party that follows seems less to Mr. Fluffernutter's liking (perhaps it's the hat). He doesn't look to be enjoying swinging or swimming either. His little girl just doesn't understand why he would walk away from playing baby in the pram (he's wearing a bonnet, of course). Seems he'd rather watch the goldfish swim (which she finds boring). His stinky choice of lunch and insistence on lengthy bouts of yarn play make the girl question their friendship. Maybe they'll have fun alone--but they don't, a fact made plain in both expression and body language in a double-page spread of vignettes. They find they really do enjoy doing everything together--but sometimes they "just do it a little differently." Olson applies the same sweetly dry humor to feline-human relations that she did to ninja bunnies. Her pudgy, watercolor-and-pencil illustrations smartly convey the depth of the bond between these two. Young listeners might not catch Mr. Fluffernutter's discontent at first glance, but his expressions tell all for the observant tot. Plenty of appeal for pets and the small people who love them. (Picture book. 3-7)
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January 1, 2018
According to a small girl, she and her cat Mr. Fluffernutter are best friends. The illustrations tell a different story as the cat, a solid square of stubbornness, becomes increasingly fed up. The highly decorative setting and page design (large black font, an extravagance of uppercase and exclamation points) carry the emotion. A lesson about allowing friends their autonomy perches lightly on this amusing story.
(Copyright 2018 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)
January 1, 2018
Mr. Fluffernutter is a cat. His person, a small girl, is our narrator. According to her, the two of them are best friends. She tells us, with the authority of a large black font and an extravagance of uppercase and exclamation points, that Mr. Flutternutter, for example, "LOVES tea parties." The illustrations tell a different story as the cat, a solid square of stubbornness, becomes increasingly fed up. The final straw? Being dressed up as a baby. Fluffernutter bails. He decides to do his own thing, to the increased frustration of the narrator ("You want WHAT for lunch, Mr. Fluffernutter?"). They part company with hurt feelings and damaged dignity before finally coming together in an activity they can humorously share. The setting is highly decorative, as touches of collage add a contemporary note to an elegantly retro and slightly mysterious world of butterfly nets, wallpaper, chandeliers, and claw-foot bathtubs. Pictures and page design carry the emotion here. At the point when it all goes wrong, Mr. Fluffernutter's hauteur as he stalks off page right is matched only by the narrator's as she exits, arms crossed and eyes squinched shut, page left, leaving the single word alone floating in white space near the gutter. On the following spread a set of four vignettes shows how miserable child and cat are to be at odds. A lesson about allowing friends their autonomy perches lightly on this amusing story. sarah ellis
(Copyright 2018 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)