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
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.
About the Author
John Sullivan makes his authorial debut with Kitten and the Night Watchman. John works for the City of Chicago guarding buildings and equipment. It was during one of his rounds that he found his cat, Beebe. They were companions for seventeen years. This book is inspired by that experience.
About the Illustrator
Taeeun Yoo has twice received the prestigious New York Times Best Illustrated Children’s Book Award. She has illustrated many books, including Strictly No Elephants by Lisa Mantchev, which has been published in twelve countries. The New York Times called it a “sunny, smart, tongue-in-cheek tale.” Other books include So Many Days and Only a Witch Can Fly, both by Alison McGhee, and Round by Joyce Sidman, which received four starred reviews. Taeeun was also the recipient of the Ezra Jack Keats Award and the Society of Illustrators’ Founders Award. She lives in South Korea with her family.
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)
