by Moe Zilla

Created on: March 14, 2010

Christopher Myers had already won the Caldecott Honor.  (He'd illustrated a book called Harlem with his father, Walter Dean Myers, in a style one reviewer called "bold collage and ink.") But one year later Christopher Myers created a second book about Harlem - using photographs of the neighborhood that he'd shot himself. He converted the photographs into some stunning illustrations. And it all tells the story of a mysterious cat prowling the city streets.

"Black cat, black cat, we want to know
where's your home, where do you go?"

The poem slinks through image after image - as the cat makes it way from one sight to the next. The cat explores an empty subway car, and even walks along the top of a chain-link fence. It's seen climbing a fire escape, and crossing a distant roof. Myers provides all the sights of a familiar urban neighborhood - but only as the backdrop for the travels of the mysterious cat.

"Do you nod hello to the people you meet
over yellow subway seats?"

But the most striking thing about the book is its illustrations, in a style I've never seen before. Myers processes the photos so they resemble the colors of a children's book - even though they're arty replicas of a real-world city. It turns reality itself into something magically unreal - a strange half-world between illustration and photograph. And it seems oddly appropriate that it's hosting the mysterious black cat.

Myers adds a beauty to the neighborhoods around Harlem. He adds a brilliant red sky behind the buildings of the projects. There's soft purple and yellow colors in the graffiti along the walls. The cat's black silhouette and shadow approach cheery chalk drawings on the sidewalk. And Myers ultimately dedicates the book to "all children of the city, like me."

It's not the best poem I've ever read. It seems like Myers is simply listing the things he's seen in the city. And the reality of the photo-illustrations is a little off-putting. There's a beauty in Myers' process, but sometimes a brick building is just a brick building. But my biggest complaint is the lack of a story. The cat has no motivation - no goal, or even a personality. But if there's a message, it's hidden in the book's last page, when Myer's reveals to his readers the final line of his poem. Black cat, black cat, where is your home?

"Black cat answers,
anywhere I roam."

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