Table of Contents
ART! CRAFTS! CATS!
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Joan Sweeney’s Bijou, Bonbon, and Beau: The Kittens Who Danced for Degas (Chronicle Books, 2002) is the story of three mischievous kittens adopted by a ballet theater in Paris where artist Edgar Degas comes to sketch the dancers. Illustrations are Degas-style impressionist pastels. For ages 2-6. |
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Nonny Hogrogian’s Cool Cat (Roaring Brook Press, 2009) is a wonderful wordless picture book in which a black cat with a paint box arrives in a desolate vacant lot and proceeds to transform it. In each double-page spread, a new helper arrives to wield a paintbrush, and by the end of the book, the lot has become a flower-filled meadow with a pond. For ages 3-6. |
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James Warhola’s Uncle Andy’s Cats (G.P. Putnam’s Sons, 2009) tells the story of artist Andy Warhol’s 25 cats – beginning with the first little blue cat named Hester. Illustrations include images of the artist’s paintings and of Warhol at work. For ages 4-8. |
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Geraldine Elschner’s The Cat and the Bird (Prestel Publishing, 2012) – inspired by and illustrated in the style of artist Paul Klee – is the tale of a little cat who, despite a lovely home filled with toys, envies the freedom of the bird. Then one day the bird manages to set the cat free, and at the end the cat is dancing joyfully on the roof in the moonlight. For ages 5-8. |
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Deep Space Sparkle Art Lessons for Kids has a wonderful Paul Klee art lesson featuring The Cat and the Bird. Kids make gorgeous multicolored castles. |
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Also see Mike Venezia’s Paul Klee (Children’s Press, 1991), a delightful 32-page biography in the “Getting to Know the World’s Greatest Artists” series. For ages 5-9. |
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Shelley Jackson’s Mimi’s Dada Catifesto (Clarion Books, 2010), a marvelously illustrated mélange of collage, drawings, newspaper clippings, and eccentric typefaces, is the story of a creative alley cat who finds a home with the absurdist Mr. Dada, an imaginative off-the-wall artist who is clearly Mimi’s kindred spirit. An author’s note explains – or at least attempts to explain – the Dada movement. (“Dada is anything silly and surprising.”) For ages 6-9. |
| Check out this gallery of Dadaist artworks. | |
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Marguerite Henry’s Benjamin West and His Cat Grimalkin (Beautiful Feet Books, 2008) is a lightly fictionalized 156-page biography of the Pennsylvania Quaker who grew up to become the “father of American painting” and the only American ever to become president of the British Royal Academy. As a boy, Benjamin was so passionate about painting that he made his own paints from clay and devised brushes with fur from his pet cat’s tail. For ages 9-12. |
| Cats in Art is a virtual exhibit of cats in art, arranged in chronological order from antiquity to the present. | |
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Lee J. Ames’s Draw 50 Cats (Watson-Guptill, 2012) is a 64-page step-by-step guide to drawing house cats, wild cats, and cartoon cats. For ages 9 and up. |
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Ruth Soffer’s The Cat Lovers’ Coloring Book (Dover Publications) has 30 ready-to-color illustrations of the world’s top cat breeds, among them Burmese, Siamese, Persian, and Maine Coon cats. |
| DLTK’s Cat Activities include coloring pages, instructions for a cat paper bag puppet and a cat shapes project (make a cat from circles and triangles), cat mini-books and writing paper, and more. For ages 2 and up. | |
| First School’s Cat Theme has printable alphabet pages (C for cat; K for kitten) and worksheets, links to fairy tales, fables, and nursery rhymes featuring cats, online cat jigsaw puzzles, cat papercrafts, and more. | |
| ChildFun has a list of creative cat activities: for example, kids make wallpaper calico cats, handprint cats, cat collages, and potato-print pawprints. | |
| Enchanted Learning has patterns and instructions for cat puppets, cat greeting cards, and a black cat hat. | |
| From Artists Helping Children, Cat Crafts for Kids has dozens of cat-based crafts, among them cat masks, cat Christmas ornaments, a striped-cat craft stick refrigerator magnet, cat bookmarks, origami cats, and more. |