Looking for Luna, by Tim Myers, a picture book in verse

Looking for Luna, by Tim Myers, illustrated by Mike Reed (Marshall Cavendish 2009)

"We're after a cat,
a soft-stepping cat,
I'm walking with dad and we're after a cat.
With me out in front and Dad close behind,
there's a wandering kitty we need to find."

And so the hunt for Luna beings...all over the neighborhood, a little girl and her father search and search for the lost kitty. There are many places for a cat to explore here, and many cats busy (or not so busy) going about their feline days.

"We pass a rickety wooden house,
where a yellow cat's just caught a mouse
a cat we rarely see, who creeps
through canna lilies, pauses, leaps
up to the top of the garden wall,
then shadows away like mist in fall."

As the search goes on, and girl and Dad great more and more familiar cats, it becomes clear that they have done this many times before...but at last, there is Luna! Not far away, and happy to be held again. So there's little anxiety here-looking for Luna is more a familiar adventure of daily life then a dreadful worry.

And in fact, the book ends with another hunt "for a soft-stepping, shining-eyed, milk-lapping cat" beginning...giving a reason for father and child to set off on a quest together, on a warm sunny day.

A lovely one, both picture-wise and word-wise, for the cat loving child.

(disclaimer: review copy received from the publisher)

For more poetry, please visit the Poetry Friday Roundup at Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast!