Before you read any further, I need to warn you that this week’s post contains spoilers for the book Millions of Cats by Wanda Gag. It was published back in 1928, so this is not exactly a hot off the presses thing, but if you’ve never read it, and don’t want me to spoil your enjoyment of this children’s classic, well then I would advise you stop reading right now.
This year some notable creative works entered the public domain. One is the Steamboat Willie version of Mickey Mouse another is the classic children’s picture book Millions of Cats written and illustrated by Wanda Gag. This book won a Newbery Honor in 1929 and apparently is the oldest American picture book still in print. It was also a favorite picture book of yours truly back in the day.
Several years ago, I went back and read it as an adult, and I was a bit surprised about how strange and ultimately dark this picture book is. This book may be the oldest American picture book still in print, but I can assure you, if some newbie author illustrator had tried to get it published as a children’s book today, no one would touch this book with a ten foot pole. So, here comes the spoiler bit. The gist of the story is that an older couple wants to adopt a cat, but they wind up in the predicament of having millions of cats to choose from. They decide to adopt the handomest one, which inevitably leads to the millions of cats fighting each other to the literal death until just one cat remains alive, who the couple ultimately adopt. Yes, that’s right this beloved picture book recounts the story of millions of cats attacking and killing each other. Why did I love this book as a kid? Why did so many children? These are questions for the ages.
To write this post I looked up the book on Amazon. It has 4.8 out of 5 stars. That’s not surprising for a classic, but I couldn’t help screenshotting a couple of the reviews, because they make me a little bit skeptical of all Amazon reviews:
Always a sweet story for cat lovers and others? Did they read the same book I did?
A heartwarming story? What?
Anyway, there are a few reviews that do point out that the book can be a bit dark and difficult, but the majority seem to believe this is a sweet story for little kids. People are weird, and picture books definitely used to be much weirder than they are today.
Maurice Sendak is best known as the author of Where the Wild Things Are. We did not own this book when I was a kid, but we did have a copy of his book Outside Over There. It received a Caldecott Honor so it’s not really obscure, but it’s definitely stranger than Where the Wild Things Are with a story about a baby sister who gets kidnapped by goblins with a changeling left in her place. If I were trying to write a book that might give a kid nightmares if read as a bedtime story, I might create something like Outside Over There.
A book that we didn’t have as kid in our library, but which I stumbled upon when working in the children’s department of a public library was The Nightgown of the Sullen Moon by Nancy Willard. It leapt out at me because I knew the They Might Be Giants song of the same title. So, of course I had to read it. It was trippy and extremely weird. I’m not saying drugs were involved in the writing of this book, but I don’t think we can rule out that possibility. I at first assumed They Might Be Giants wrote their song after reading the picture book themselves, but I ended up going down an internet rabbit hole and learned that in fact a young fan drew and sent a crayon picture for them titled The Nightgown of the Sullen Moon based apparently on the picture book, but TMBG unaware of this connection just assumed that this was a very creative title for the drawing and thus wrote a song inspired by the artwork only learning later about the existence of the book of the same name. It’s an art begets art begets art sort of thing. (I’ve read something similiar about Kurt Cobain who claims he didn’t learn until after recording the classic Nirvana song that Teen Spirit was a brand of deodorant.)
There’s a lot of great picture books out there, but I feel like the modern ones are a bit too tame, and there really is a lack of weirdness in the children’s picture book market. Then again trends come and go and come back again. Perhaps we’re due for a revival of weird, trippy picture books.
— Alissa
Weekly Inspiration
What I’m Reading: Eileen by Ottessa Moshfegh
What I’m Watching: You Are What You Eat
What I’m Listening to: “The Nightgown of the Sullen Moon” by They Might Be Giants
Find out more about my books at alissagrosso.com
Find out more about my digital art at alissacarin.com
My apologies for the typos and such this post is almost certainly riddled with.
I read the cat book to my kids who are in their forties now. Never thought of it as dark, but then I have a demented sense of humor. Imagine how many picture books, juvenile and YA fiction written before the sensitivity reader phenomenon took hold. Library shelves would be almost bare. Glad I write dark fiction most of the time, so readers know what to expect.
I agree, picture books were sometimes surprisingly weird.