A Wigwam for a Goose's Bridle

Come Down, Cat! Is a picture book with delightful illustrations. It’s evening and Nicholas’s cat is still on the roof. Nicholas climbs the rickety old ladder to help him down, but the cat refuses. Nicholas goes to sleep worried about his cat’s safety from nocturnal monsters. Just after midnight, it begins to rain heavily. Nicholas leaps out of bed, climbs the old ladder during a downpour, risks possible monsters, and brings his cat inside. They towel off in the kitchen instead of near the fire and go back to sleep in Nicholas’s bed, each thinking the other must be super brave.

Now look, the pictures are well done, it’s lovely that Nicholas loves cat so much, and I note the book was shortlisted for an award, but… we’ve read this every night for a fortnight and things are starting to bother me. Nicholas is a boy. Age is hard to tell by illustration but I’m guessing about 8? He has toys around his bed. The cat refers to him as a boy. He’s not even a teen. Where are his parents? Where are they when he climbs a giant broken ladder two storeys in his pyjamas just before bed? Where are they when he does it again in the middle of the night in the rain? When he sits with the cat in the kitchen and the open fire is visible in the next room? In the absence of parents, how does he live in this epic house that almost looks like a mini castle? Also, the roof the cat is on leads directly to two different balconies. The cat could very easily get off the roof onto either of these balconies and under the eaves for shelter. He does not need Nicholas to climb a dangerous ladder in inclement weather. Further, if Nicholas really does need to coax the cat down or help it, he could do so from a balcony much more safely.

It’s not a bad book. It’s a sweet story about the things we do for those we love. I’m just really worried for Nicholas’s safety and he is seriously getting played by that cat.