The Cat Who Liked Potato Soup

Candlewick Books, illustrated by Barry Root

There was an old man, an ol’ Texas boy,
country-raised, don’t you know.
Grew up hardy on fried chicken
and biscuits big as Lewisville Lake,
and with an army of cats
so as one looked about the same as another. 

Now the place was wizened down
to the old man and one cat –
who he liked
but not so’s you’d notice.

“Picture book artists tend to get most of the glory in the picture-book partnership, but a truly fine picture-book text is a thing of beauty in its own right, achieving things that pictures can’t (even as the art achieves things that the text can’t) rather than functioning merely as punctuation or captioning. Though it’s a demanding format, with its need for compactness and for partnership, there are those that excel at it: Margaret Wise Brown, Arthur Yorinks, Jacqueline Briggs Martin, to name a few. Now Terry Farish demonstrates herself an exciting new talent in the genre with this casually told yet tender tale about the prickly friendship between an old man and his cat’. Bulletin for the Center of Children’s Books Blue Ribbon Winner

Reading and Discussion Guide