Cat comes to the big city to stay with best friend, Chicken. The city is exciting (and there's so much to do!) but after a while Cat pines for the country with its trees and bright colours. Chicken takes Cat on fun adventures but Cat remains blue. How can Chicken make the city a brighter and happier place for Cat to live in? When Cat gets the idea to plant a garden in an empty lot, the city blooms, and so does Chicken and Cat's friendship. Kindergarten-Grade 2 In this wordless story, bold, full-bleed cartoon illustrations are amiably cluttered, well-suited to the theme of a visit to the city. Cat is alternately puzzled, saddened, and delighted by all that he sees upon arriving in New York: noisy taxis, overflowing garbage, Central Park, and Coney Island. His bliss as he basks at the beach or gazes into the park's lake is infectious. But his unease is equally affecting: Cat wants more from his friend's drab city world. Varon is sensitive, funny, and skillful as she contrasts the colorful open spaces that Cat enjoys with the muted, confined hubbub where the scuffle of rats and cockroaches competes with honking traffic. It's no wonder that Cat's expression is subdued when the friends return, after an excursion, to Chicken's apartment. The eureka! moment as he recognizes a solution is a pleasure to behold. This book has a funny, big-eyed sweetness, and is packed with details that kids will relish discovering in successive readings. Susan Weitz, formerly at Spencer-Van Etten School District, Spencer, NY Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. PreS-Gr. 2. Springing straight from Varon's graphic-novel background, this clean, wordless picture book introduces a duo in the tradition of George and Martha, Boo and Baa, and so many others. When Cat visits Chicken in a cartoonland version of New York City, the drab, gritty surroundings dampen his mood, and day trips to Central Park and Coney Island merely underscore the gloom of Chicken's neighborhood. In a conclusion reminiscent of Sarah Stewart and David Small's The Gardener (1997), the friends plant a garden that brings spectacular color to a vacant lot--and to the view from Chicken's apartment window. Very young children may wonder why Cat is so dissatisfied when the city (and his devoted friend) offer so much, and those unfamiliar with graphic-novel conventions may be confused by a garden that goes from bare to blooming in a single spread. But wordless books have the advantage of embracing numerous interpretations, and there are certainly no barriers to Varon's charming, digitally colored illustrations, or to her themes of cooperation between friends and the importance of green, growing things in any community. Jennifer Mattson Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved Kirkus Artfully using color more than faces to show feeling, Varon debuts with a wordless, very simply drawn tale of a New York City chicken finding a way to make a feline visitor from the country more at home. Stepping down from the bus, Cat's first impressions of the big city come from rats and roaches, dogs, garbage and, most of all, the dull beige tones of streets and buildings all around. Though Chicken takes Cat to Central Park, and even out to Coney Island's beaches and boats, nothing lifts the mood—until, that is, Chicken and Cat buy flower and vegetable seeds to turn the empty lot visible from Cat's window into a garden. The lifting spirits are signaled by subtle changes of expression and small floral explosions of color, but it won't escape young viewers sensitive to such visual cues. A fine, deceptively simple-looking start. (Picture book. 5- \Booklist PreS–Gr. 2. Springing straight from Varon's graphic-novel background, this clean, wordless picture book introduces a duo in the tradition of George and Martha, Boo and Baa, and so many others. When Cat visits Chicken in a cartoonland version of New York City, the drab, gritty surroundings dampen his mood, and day trips to Central Park and Coney Island merely underscore the gloom of Chicken's neighborhood. In a conclusion reminiscent of Sarah Stewart and David Small's The Gardener (1997), the friends plant a garden that brings spectacular color to a vacant lot–and to the view from Chicken's apartment window. Very young children may wonder why Cat is so dissatisfied when the city (and his devoted friend) offer so much, and those unfamiliar with graphic-novel conventions may be confused by a garden that goes from bare to blooming in a single spread. But wordless books have the advantage of embracing numerous interpretations, and there are certainly no barriers to Varon's charming, digitally colored illustrations, or to her themes of cooperation between friends and the importance of green, growing things in any community. –Jennifer Mattson PW Starred ****In this understated but poignant narrative sequence, whose only words appear on street signs and shops, an ochre