cover image Miss Annie, Book One: Freedom!

Miss Annie, Book One: Freedom!

Frank Le Gall and Flore Balthazar. Lerner/Graphic Universe, $6.95 trade paper (48p) ISBN 978-0-7613-8546-2

Miss Annie is a kitten, and she does all of the expected kitten activities—playing with pens and yarn, napping on armchairs, and begging for food. But she does the unexpected, too, like befriending a mouse she knows she’s supposed to hunt. On her first adventure outside of the house, she meets two older cats, Zeno and Miss Rostropovna, who guide her through the big, new world. Annie has a wide range of expressions, from her perked ears to the tip of her pert tail, a perfectly captured paragon of kittenhood. With a charming sensibility and lovely art in the vein of adult bandes desinées like The Rabbi’s Cat, this gentle story of discovery is kept lively with Annie’s antics, interior dialogue, and interactions with the creatures, human and otherwise, in her neighborhood. Ages 7–10. (Mar.)