Hello,

I was in the library with Luke the other day and I came across this awesome Library Win!

Seeing this book instantly bought a huge amount of childhood memories flooding back to me. I used to read these books and even watch them on VHS. I knew instantly that this book was coming home with us and we were going to have such a great time reading it.

The Black Cat, by Allan Ahlberg and Andre Amstutz follows the very well known skeletal family from the ‘Funny Bones’ series around on their wintery adventure.

The Black Cat is all about Little Skeleton and Big Skeleton going sledging. Unfortunately, when you’re a skeleton, it’s easy to lose some bones – especially white bones in the white snow…although it may be tricky to find bones (it’s okay, they can be easily replaced at the Bone Yard), it’s very easy to see The Black Cat in the snow. But what happens when the skeleton dog meets the black cat? You’ll have to read it to find out!

The illustrations in The Black Cat are just how I remembered them. Simple, clean and fun. I still love the look of this book even now. It definitely appealed to Luke too. As with other ‘Funny Bones’ books, the infamous introduction is present:

“In a dark dark town, on a cold cold night…”

Luke’s Verdict:

Luke’s a big fan of cats at the moment. Every thing is a cat. He sees a rabbit, it’s a cat. Dog? Cat! You get the picture. This was a great book for him as he was able to point to the cat on every other page and enjoyed talking us through what was happening (Cat! Crash! Oh dear…!) He also notices the difference between cats and dogs, but only when it’s really pointed out to him. So eventually, after a few reads, he accepted the the skeleton dog was a dog and the black cat was a cat.

Over All Thoughts

I’m really glad we came across this in the library and we will definitely be on the lookout for other books in the Funny Bones series. It was great for me to find something that I have such fond memories of and being able to share that with Luke was so lovely. It’s a great gentle read, nice to read before nap time or bed time, but it was also a good read for wind down time, when things started to get a bit too manic. From the crafts and activities side of things, I can see this book being perfect for themes such as Halloween and Christmas.