by Moe Zilla

Created on: March 25, 2010

There's a little girl facing a crowd of wild animals on the book's cover. And there's even more wild animals when the picture continues on the back cover. There's bears, deer, bobcats, and even two moose. And the picture is framed by smaller illustrations showing the little girl being watched through the boughs of a pine tree - by a cat!

"Annie and the Wild Animals" was one of the first children's picture books by author-illustrator Jan Brett, but she brings the little girl to life in a story which feels vital and mysterious. "It had been snowing for days," the books opens. "Winter was lasting too long." And Annie's cat Taffy had stopped playing, sleeping more and more. "Annie found her curled up in strange places."

The illustrations add so much to the story, since the cat's personality comes through in its funny poses. It twists its head around while reclining in a drawer full of potatoes, and its orange-and-yellow stripes seem comically active when the cat itself fall asleep in tiny Annie's arms! Brett even contributes extra illustrations of the cat and the girl playing together. In the border around the first pages, there's "bonus" illustrations showing the girl finding the cat hiding in a basket - and even under a chest of drawers.

"One morning Annie could not find Taffy anywhere," Brett writes - and now the mystery begins. But even here the illustrations help to set the tone. (There's bright icicles hanging on both sides of her door, which is carved with an elaborate old European pattern.) Brett adds decorative snowflakes in the corners of the pages, as these "bonus" illustrations reveal where the cat has gone. It's already tramped off into the snow, and Annie decides to lure a new animal to be her friend by leaving out a corn cake snack.

"The next morning the corn cake was gone. In its place stood a giant moose..."

It's a kind of magical realism for children, as Annie, naturally, decides the moose arrived because she placed the corn cake in the snow. "He's too big to tame. I have to try again," Annie thinks. And the next day at the place where she's left the corn cake, she discovers a snarling wildcat.

And the moose, again...

It leads up to the scene on the book's cover - soon she's attracted a growling bear, plus a stag, his family, and a large grey wolf. "Not one of them is soft and friendly like Taffy," she sighs. And it gets worse when a moose sticks his nose in through her window the next morning. But magically, a warm breeze arrives at the end of the book, to melt the snow away and lead the animals off to new food. And in a sweet ending, Taffy finally returns to poor lonely Annie.
Along with three new kittens!

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