Kitten and the Night Watchman

By: John Sullivan, Taeeun Yoo (Illustrator)

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Hardcover | 25 September 2018

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Winner of the Ezra Jack Keats Award and the Margaret Wise Brown Prize

SELECTED AS A BEST BOOK OF 2018 BY THE BOSTON GLOBE, KIRKUS REVIEWS, PUBLISHERS WEEKLY, AND BOOKPAGE

"Every life and job is unique; this book's take on the job of a watchman is empathetic, poetic, and a joy to look at, cute kitty and all." -Kirkus Reviews (starred review)

"This quiet, understated book contains a wealth of emotions young children can work through and relate to-from worry to relief to the comfort of belonging." -The Horn Book (starred review)

"[Illustrator] Yoo sets a lovely mood, taking readers from sunset to dawn through washes of orange, pink, and blue, the watchman's compassionate demeanor assuring them that all's well." -Publishers Weekly (starred review)

"Yoo's textured, serene artwork in beautiful saturated tones perfectly complements Sullivan's lines and conveys a beauty in the night and the construction site that readers might otherwise miss." -Booklist (starred review)

"This soft, gentle story is a perfect bedtime story for lovers of trucks and construction equipment, cats, and nighttime wanders." -BCCB (starred review)

A stray kitten changes the way the watchman sees nighttime in this tender book based on a true story, illustrated by Strictly No Elephants artist Taeeun Yoo.

The night watchman hugs his wife and kids and drives to work.
All night he is alone.
Every hour he makes his rounds.

He sees the stars twinkling. He hears the sounds of the night:
ki-DEE ki-DEE ki-DEE
shhhhheeeeeEEEERRRROOOOooooommmmmm
Woof! Woof! Woof!

Meeeoooow.

When he is joined by a stray kitten, the night suddenly seems different. Has the kitten found a new home?

Kitten and the Night Watchman is inspired by the true story of author John Sullivan meeting a stray cat while working as a night watchman. The cat, Beebe, was John's companion for seventeen years.

Industry Reviews

The story of a simple friendship that forms over the course of a night shift is given rich life with evocative art and prose. After the title character leaves his family to work as a caretaker of a large construction site, he's visited by a small, gray kitten. The tiny furry companion follows as the night watchman makes his rounds, but when the kitten disappears, the man worries about its fate as he hears a dog, a train, passing cars. This isn't a Stephen King novel; things turn out fine, and the man's family ends up one feline richer. But the journey to get to that dawn reunion is lovely. Illustrator Yoo's sunsets, purple-to-blue night skies, and chalky beams of yellow light set the mood, while her deceptively simple rendering of the kind-faced watchman puts readers into the man's shoes. But the real surprise is the depth of debut writer Sullivan's words. The construction vehicles don't just sit on the lot: "Garbage trucks line up like circus elephants. / A backhoe rises like a giant insect." Sound effects ("peent peent peent" goes a nighthawk) and lived-in, careful observations make it no surprise to learn that Sullivan was a building and equipment guard and that the cat-adoption story is real. The man and his family are people of color. Every life and job is unique; this book's take on the job of a watchman is empathetic, poetic, and a joy to look at, cute kitty and all. (Picture book. 4-8)

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