The Baby Blue Cat Who Said No, Ainslie Pryor

Choosing one bedtime story was always difficult in my house, I had so many books how could I narrow down my choices to just ONE!  However, this book was one of my more requested bedtime stories, and it could only be read to me by my mom (she got the voices just right for this story, and my dad was notorious for giving male characters female voices and vice versa).  The Baby Blue Cat had a few other adventures (And The Dirty Dog Brothers, And The Whole Batch of Cookies, And The Smiley Worm Doll) but this was my first introduction to him, and his antics.

The story is simple enough: the Baby Blue Cat, unlike his well behaved siblings, doesn't want to do anything! He doesn't want to eat dinner, dessert or even have a bedtime story.  Mama Cat takes care of her other kittens and then returns to deal with the stubborn Baby Blue Cat, who still refuses everything.  Distraught, Mama Cat sits in the living room unable to deal with her willful kitten.  Baby Blue Cat of course feels guilty for his behavior and apologizes to Mama Cat, and decides that yes he will eat his supper, and his dessert, and would like a bedtime story.  So Mama Cat takes care of him and puts him to bed, only to say that he must be very tired (presumably from his stubborn behavior) which we all know the answer to her question has to be...NO!

I loved this story then and I still do now, probably because like Baby Blue Cat, I too could be defiant at times (which has not changed). 

It begins with a question:

And ends in a similar manner:

The simplicity of the story is its charm.  There is no long complicated plot with multiple characters or hard to pronounce words, there is simply the story with a beginning and an end.  The art matches the story perfectly, simple drawings and light colors which are used make the illustrations just as easy to follow as the story.

My one criticism with it lies with the response to Baby Blue Cats behavior.  Obviously Mama Cat has her hands full with four growing kittens, however Baby Blue Cat behaves rather rudely, and still manages to get dessert and a bedtime story.  Yes he does apologize for his behavior, but letting him have all the same things that the other well behaved cats got seems to me rather unfair to them.  This is a minor problem, and only one that I have realized as an adult and having worked with children.  I don't believe that rewarding bad behavior is the intention of this book, but I can see how it might come across to some people as though it is.

Sadly I've been forced to track extra copies of these books down through used book stores and websites because they were published once in hardcover (in the 1980's) and once in paperback (in the 1990's).  But if you manage to find this or any of the others in the series I highly recommend all of them!