Cat on the Mat is Flat

Yay! Hooray! Yippee! This book will make you giggle with glee!

Publishers Weekly

Griffiths's (The Day My Butt Went Psycho!) innovative book for beginning readers collects nine short, intentionally silly snippets propelled by kid-pleasing, tongue-tripping verse. In the title tale, a cat sitting on a mat decides to chase a rat, who grabs a baseball bat: "Around and around and around the mat the rat chased the cat with the baseball bat until... KERSPLAT!" Other protagonists also encounter tongue-in-cheek adversity. Friends Ed and Ted and Ted's dog Fred survive a tumble off a cliff, a near-drowning and ingestion by a whale. Lou, "the unluckiest girl that the world ever knew," becomes covered in a kangaroo's glue and then lands headfirst in a "prickle bush." And pals Bill and Phil roll down a hill, landing in a puddle of smelly pig swill. Griffiths's bouncy cadence and wacky wordplay occasionally sound derivative of Dr. Seuss, as when a hog reprimands a speeding dog and frog: "Racing is NOT allowed in my bog! Not on a log! Not on a cog! No log-racing frogs! No cog-racing dogs!" And when Chuck the Duck's ice-cream truck gets stuck in the muck, Buck the Duck announces, "I can get your truck unstuck. I can suck up all the muck with the muck-sucker-upper on my muck-sucking truck!" Denton's edgy, stick-figure-filled sketches enhance the zaniness factor and the offbeat, ironic humor. Ages 4-8. (Sept.)

Andy Griffiths is The New York Times bestselling author of The Day My Butt Went Psycho!, Zombie Butts from Uranus!, and Butt Wars! The Final Conflict, as well as the hugely popular Just! books. He is a big fan of Dr. Seuss and of cauliflower.

Terry Denton is known for his humorous illustration style and has worked with Andy on the Just! books among others. He lives by the sea in Australia with his wife, three kids, and a pop-up toaster that only toasts on one side.

The next book from Andy and Terry will be The Big Fat Cow That Goes Kapow available from Feiwel and Friends in Fall 2009.