Books like I Am a Witch's Cat — picked by fans

The absolutely gorgeous watercolors in Cris Grimly’s 10 Spooky Pumpkins jumped out and stole my heart! Rich color and high contrast pump up the Halloween mood, while his sensitivity to letting the washes flow in their own way shows a freedom and respect for the watercolor medium.

Grimly’s characters, including witches, ghosts and goblins to name a few, are stylized enough to balance the creepy with fun originality. Outlining watercolor with an ink line can flatten the art. But Grimly picks and chooses his sepia line work to draw you into detail, and then holds off to let the washes sing, creating great depth and space in his scenes.

This book makes me want to paint more night scenes! Thanks, Cris Grimly!

While the imagery and color palette seem simplified in Eric Rohmann’s Bone Dog, the mastery of his black line carries the art for me in this touching tale about a boy and his dog.

Rohmann uses a woodcut technique to create his black outlining. To actually carve around a drawn image, leaving the drawing raised up to ink and print on paper takes a tremendous amount of time for a 32-page picture book. The results are well worth it, these pages are stunning.

What I really love is the little bits of black around many of the carved areas having picked up some of the ink and left on the print, giving an added sense of movement, similar to cartoon motion lines. The dancing skeletons and running dogs really come to life!

The background washes of rich blue watercolor enhance the Halloween night mood, resulting in a beautiful mix of… show more.

This book is super funny. Sir Simon’s expressions are priceless. I love how Sir Simon looks grumpy but kind inside.

The layout and comic-like style make this book dynamic and fun to read. Cale’s artwork is super expressive, vibrant, and funny.

What I loved most about Ashley Wolff’s How to Help a Pumpkin Grow was her color! This luscious book is filled with gorgeous, intense full-spectrum color! Wolff’s wet on wet washes flow seamlessly into each other as a base layer. I am guessing, there may be some smooth pastel added to enhance the color in places. Wolff’s adept painting skill brings out details with multi-colored painted line work on top of the washes. 

Unusual touches like the addition of saturated royal blue to highlight the black coat of the dog and crow feathers add an interesting pop of color. The great asset of acrylic gouache is that it can be both transparent or opaque, enabling Wolff to add light line work on top of dark washes.

Gorgeous work, Ashley Wolff!

Everyone I love who’s seen my shelf knows how much I love this picture book. I adore the simple ink drawings; it’s all I need to understand to story.

I never expected a 32-page book to break me like this. It makes me want to hug my cat Marlie and never let go (to her annoyance). To me, it explained life and death so perfectly—when one goes away, another comes into our lives.

This simple children’s book shares the story of the death of a beloved pet and the subsequent processing of the loss. It has a gentle and clear approach, without any suggestion of an afterlife but rather an appreciation for all the wonderful things about the pet who is gone. 

If you are interested in continuing bonds with a child after a loss, this is a nice way to approach and expand on the topic. 

His ‘n’ Hers is about a love story gone awry. No one to blame. That’s just how the cookie crumbled. But now something has happened.

Allison and Jim’s cat Disco, the one they shared while they lived together, has just died, bringing back all the memories of when they shared that flat. Trouble is they both have new partners. After grilling themselves about what went wrong, who did what, and are they better off, Alison and Jim give each other a good hard look to understand what happened to them.

And is there still hope for them, despite their current partners? Were they meant to be?

A pet adoption story told completely in haiku? Yes, please!

This delightful story begins at a pet shelter when a little boy chooses a cat to take home. It is told from the point of view of the cat with “catitude” and is so clever and funny! I am more of a dog person, but this story won me over and warmed my heart! Younger kids will enjoy the story and darling illustrations while older kids will recognize the three short lines of the clever “one breath” poetry.

While growing up, superheroes were a significant part of my life – from TV’s Mighty Mouse as a young child to my elementary school years when comic books featuring Superman and Spider-Man took over.

I’m sure I would’ve been more invested in reading books at an earlier age if these “super” characters were featured in them.

With bright-and-bold illustrations and goofy pun-filled speech bubbles, this hilarious action-packed misadventure depicts how Max Meow acquires his powers (including a tail that shoots electric bolts), and combines forces with Mindy Microbe (scientist extraordinaire), to track down a magical space meatball.

When Max temporarily loses his superpowers, he learns that “You don’t need superpowers to be a hero.” Good advice for children of all ages.

Yes, cats can be trained. Training your cat is fun for you and it is fun for your cat. This is the best training manual you can ever buy and it also tells you a lot about cats. Have a go. You won’t regret it! I train my cats, even though I am a very amateur trainer, as you can see from my YouTube channel! They purr while they do it.