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Once, in a shining night,
while the moon looked down
and the stars glittered in the endless sky,
and all the house was lost in dreams...
A little girl named Kate awakens to a cat calling to her
from the night. "Meow. Meow. Meow!" Kate answers, herself
transforming into a cat as she goes to meet her moon-white companion.
After taking full stock of her new gray-tabby self and listening for her
sleeping family - Grandma snoring, her brother laughing in his sleep, her parents whispering - Kate and the white cat slip off into the night by the silvery light of the moon. Through town and country they go - Jump, jump, jump! - to the top of a tall hill, where they stop under the watchful eye of a catlike moon to observe a sky full of dreams in a magical, panoramic three-panel foldout.
Together they return to Kate's home, where Kate becomes just Kate again and goes to sleep.
When she awakens, it is to tales of the vivid dreams her family had during the night - dreams that Kate and the white cat watched from atop the hill.
David Almond's lyrical text captures the soothing yet mysterious quiet of the hours from dusk to dawn, and Stephen Lambert's muted but eye-enrapturing illustrations perfectly complement the words they accompany with the flattened perspective of night. Kate, the Cat and the Moon is highly recommended for preparing for sleep (and dreams) at bedtime.
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Kate, the Cat and the Moon