Shibu's Tail
This polymorphous picturebook focuses on a cat and its very special tail. The furry protagonist, who expresses himself through said appendage, finds that suppressing his emotions is a bad strategy. Ultimately though, he lights the way for others to be as flamboyant as him.
Shibu has a fondness for milk, though cats are actually lactose intolerant, but we’ll let that detail slide. When the strain of suppressing his personality gets too much he eventually reasserts his personality, and the book ends with plumes of expressiveness, this time shared, if not surpassed, by his fellow cats
Our rather Freudian feline manages to express a charming variety of forms and emotions (which also attractively decorate the inside pages after the front and before the back covers) before reaching his ‘crisis,’ namely an impasse over the uncomfortable attention his singular tail attracts. We all like to express ourselves but can we handle the spotlight (here literally represented as such) that this individuality accrues? This is one of those books that make a virtue of minimalism. Fong’s infinitely fine, rather abstract pen drawings are as special as the cat they depict. Some red lettering aside, there is really only one colour – black, contrasted with the whiteness of the page – but the delicacy of the illustrators pen has the granular quality of iron filings.
A simple but quirky book about dealing with our emotions.
