Who Loves Me?

Maclachlan, Patricia; Charest, Emily Maclachlan

ISBN 10: 006027977X ISBN 13: 9780060279776

Publisher: HarperCollins, 2005

At bedtime, a cat in the window reassures a little girl that family members, friends, her dog, and even her brother love her.

About the Author:

Patricia MacLachlan is the celebrated author of many timeless books for young readers, including Sarah, Plain and Tall, winner of the Newbery Medal. Her novels for young readers include Arthur, For the Very First Time; The Facts and Fictions of Minna Pratt; Skylark; Caleb's Story; More Perfect Than the Moon; Grandfather's Dance; Word After Word After Word; and Kindred Souls. She is also the author of many much-loved picture books, including Three Names; All the Places to Love; What You Know First; Painting the Wind; Bittle; Who Loves Me?; Once I Ate a Pie; I Didn't Do It; Before You Came; and Cat Talk—several of which she cowrote with her daughter, Emily. She lives with her husband and two border terriers in Williamsburg, Massachusetts.

Amanda Shepherd loves to watch the stars dance in the moonlight. She studied the fine art of finger painting to make this book. Originally from the Seattle area, she now lives in Phoenix, Arizona, with her husband, Gary, and Polly, the Hurricane Cat.

Emily MacLachlan Charest lives with her husband, her children, Sofia and Nicholas, two dogs, and one oversized cat, Romeo, who thinks he's a dog. She works with young children. She is the coauthor of Bittle, Painting the Wind, Once I Ate a Pie, and other books. She lives in Massachusetts.

From Booklist:

PreS. In MacLachlan's latest picture book, a little girl preparing for bed asks her marmalade cat, "Who loves me?" In a drifting dialogue that suggests a nightly ritual, the pair identify the child's many admirers and free-associate cozy details appropriate to each: grandfathers demonstrate their love by teaching "about the fish in the pond"; friends don't stop loving one another just because "[they] argue sometimes." Shepherd's stylized watercolors, reminiscent of Giselle Potter's work, balance the text's saccharine notes with angular, folk-art-style depictions of girl, cat, and their spare, dreamlike surroundings. MacLachlan's examples of parental love--Mom plants a "lily garden," Dad builds a "playhouse with blue shutters and a stone path"--may not trigger the strong, universal emotions of the less-material tributes, and Shepherd's bright palette, bathed in soft yellows and sky blues, seems to contradict the bedtime premise. Still, the reassurance that children are cocooned in love even as they sleep is just what many young ones need during those anxiety-prone moments before slumber. Jennifer Mattson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 2005
• ISBN 10: 006027977X
• ISBN 13: 9780060279776
• Binding: Library Binding
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 40
• Illustrator: Shepherd Amanda