Gui the Cat and the Monsters – Rocío Martínez – Kalandraka

The cat Gui was playing in the room.
Suddenly, he began to hear a strange noise:
fiiuuu fiiiuuu... He was filled with fear and ran away.

This album addresses a very interesting and frequent theme in children: fear. Gui the Cat can't play alone because he's afraid of all the noises he doesn't recognize: the air coming in through the window, the washing machine, the elevator, the flush toilet that drips... Any of these noises becomes, in his imagination, a monster that can attack him. His reaction is to run away to his mother, his only source of security and the only one capable of chasing away these fears. In the end, however, it ends up being Mama Cat who fears the noises that had previously scared Cat Bill, and it will then be him who calms her down, giving her not only his hand, but also a logical explanation for each of them.
Mama Gata is the author's alter ego, who here addresses the readers to convey that fear only exists in the mind of each one of them and that it is necessary to face it with courage to overcome it.
Rocío Martínez uses the pastel technique to portray characters and spaces full of sweetness. It also plays with perspective to create the feeling that rooms in the house are huge places, in the same way that the little ones see the world around them. With this feeling of amplitude, the intrigue of the story grows, the fear and loneliness that assail Gui the Cat. But the scenarios are never threatening or gloomy; There are elements – toys, clothes, books – that help the reader not to forget that he is in a safe place: home.
The author pays tribute here to Maurice Sendak and "Where the monsters live", which is represented in one of the scenes of the book. The different sizes of the typography and the dynamic arrangement of the words on each page achieve visual effects that enrich the narrative and the message of the story: resources such as onomatopoeia or the greater length of sentences, in moments that correspond to peaks of tension, also contribute to highlighting the potential of this album.

Recommended Age: 3 years and older

Size: 22.8 x 23.1 cm