Remarkably Rexy by Craig Smith
Allen & Unwin, 2015. ISBN 9781760113940
(Age: 5+) Highly recommended, Cats, Community, Personality. From the
cover kids will identify the personality traits of this seriously
self absorbed cat, Rex. He is posturing, proud and very aware of his
audience, as he waits for the children in the street to arrive home
from school. Although he sees it at his domain, there are other
things in the street to disturb his single mindedness. A magpie
family warbles in the tree above, the dog next door continues its
barking, and then just when the children are about to come home,
Pamela the pert Siamese cat appears. She has the sleek arrogant look
of these animals, carefully grooming herself and walking as if a
ballerina, in stark contrast to the antics of Rex a few pages
before. Children will chuckle out loud at the differences between
the two, and thrill recognising the behavior of such singular cats.
Craig Smith gives the reader a beautifully detailed suburb, with its
gardens and array of fences, trees overhanging the footpaths,
glimpses of different styles of houses in the background. Against
this wonderfully lush backdrop he gives us Rex, the larger than life
cat known by all the neighbourhood as he roams around his territory.
His illustrations show us the cat in all his glory, confident, a
master of all he surveys, then brought down to earth by Pamela as he
feels somewhat jealous. Later scared by the dog he escapes to the
tree only to disturb the magpies, and when he falls to the ground
landing in a puddle, the children arrive seeing him not quite at his
best.
Craig Smith has captured the looks and antics of the cats in this
story superbly: both are instantly recognisable, their personalities
well delineated in his signature pencil and watercolour drawings.
Rex is a delight, reflecting the traits of so many cats familiar to
the readers: he struts and poses, grooms himself, watching all the
while for the children to return from school, only to have his stage
purloined by someone else.
Fran Knight