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On a clear, sunny day, a small adventure begins. First, a dog slips joyfully out of his house.

Next a car pulls up to the curb, leaving a white cat alone. Then, slowly, a storm begins to brew over the park. Watch as an unlikely friendship takes shape in this one-of-a-kind book where trees, clouds, and even grass are made of words!

"Art and text are inseparable . . ."

(Booklist, starred review)

MEOW RUFF: A Story

in Concrete Poetry

Illustrated by Michelle Berg

Houghton Mifflin 2006

Ages 4-8, ISBN 0-6184-4894-2

Reader's Guide (click here)

Awards

Booklist Editor’s Choice Book

Book Links Lasting Connections Book

CCBC Choice Book

NCTE Notable Book in the Language Arts

Junior Library Guild Selection

Minnesota Book Award Finalist

Reviews

**Booklist, Starred Review

"It's typically said of picture books that art and text are inseparable, but the truth of that has rarely been more evident than it is in this introduction to concrete poetry -- which, unlike most books about the form, doesn't just collect unrelated poems, but tells a simple story through them. With the same creativity of expression that marked SONG OF THE WATERBOATMAN, a 2006 Caldecott Honor Book, Sidman develops a simple tale about a cat and dog trapped in a rainstorm . . . offering a glimpse of the world as a poet sees it: in images cloaked in words."

Horn Book

"Looking for the poetry hidden in the visual imagery is the most obvious appeal of this beautiful, innovative book; other pleasures include the splendid flood of onomatopoeia and the stunning design."

Kirkus

"The playfulness and originality of concept make this a welcome offering."

Publisher's Weekly

"Zesty words, images and design mesh in this springy treat."

How this book began . . .

This book was such a strange mixture of delight and exasperation to make! It is a combination of two of my greatest poetry loves: concrete poetry (poetry in the shape of what it’s about) and “mask” poetry (in which you pretend to be something else, and speak with its voice). I wanted to make a book in which everything had a voice—the clouds, the grass, the trees—and each of them was a character in the story. I also wanted to build it myself on the page. Like many writers, I am a latent (but not very good) artist, so constructing pictures out of words was my idea of heaven. I spent countless hours shaping and formatting my text with different fonts and teeny tiny text boxes (the raindrops were tough).

The hardest part for me came after it was accepted and went into production. I had to let go of my hand-typed black-and-white dummy and let an artist reinterpret my concrete poems. If the art IS the text, then how does one illustrate it? There was a lot of back-and-forth between the design team, the artist, the editor, and me. We wanted MEOW RUFF to be just the right mixture of concrete poetry and art to engage readers in the story. I am thrilled with the way Michelle Berg made the whole story come alive, and I especially love her crows! The odd thing is, we got a new puppy about a year ago, and he looks remarkably like the dog in this story . . .