The Post Office Cat Book

The Post Office Cat won the Kate Greenaway Award for illustration in 1976. I am unsure of the medium used for the illustrations, but it looks like watercolors or maybe gouache and ink due to the texture. The illustrations are contained within borders, but the illustrations sometimes spill over the edge of the borders a bit. Outside of the borders, the book has a white background with simple black text. The illustrations run through the gutter, taking up one full page and about half of the other page. The text is always set to the side of the image. The book utilizes a very cartoon-like style, and the colors throughout are very vibrant and bright. Some parts of the images are intentionally left as just outlines without color, which is interesting. The illustrations really enhance the narrative of Clarence the cat exploring London. For example, when Clarence looks into shop windows and he sees the “lucky cats” that live there, and readers can spot the cats in the windows in the illustrations. The title page and copyright page provide a bit of background to the story, showing Clarence’s life on the farm before he set off for London at the beginning of the story. I think this book would be suitable for a wide age range and since it is based on a true story and provides a historical note at the end, could be used to teach children about how Victorian London kept cats in the post office to help with pest control.