Mog’s many emotions are depicted by changing the shape of her eyes. This way of drawing characters allows a wider range of readers to see themselves in this family, and also makes Mog, who has a similarly simplistic face, to really look like one of the family. The faces of the characters are representational rather than serving to make them unique, with a single line for a nose, black dots for eyes and a series of lines and circles for mouths. The lines of the coloured pencil give these pictures a naivety - they seem to be done with the same materials a child would own. Judith Kerr seems to use a mixture of black line filled with vibrant ink washes, but also makes use of either crayon or coloured pencil to achieve more muted backgrounds and dream sequences. It was a dream about a tiger.’ NOTES ON THE ILLUSTRATION In this book she tells the readers: ‘Debbie had a dream. In effect, this turns the Mog series into books appropriate for emergent readers.ĭream sequences are common in the work of Judith Kerr. Though this book is not an early reader, the ‘voice’ of Mog is depicted in short, simple and repetitive sentences to suggest a naivety to a creature whose thoughts are probably less complex than those of a human. This comic representation of intruders makes this story a perfectly safe going-to-bed book. Rather than being locked up in handcuffs, the burglar even holds the policeman’s cup of tea while the policeman makes notes on a pad. He is smaller in stature than the policeman who comes to apprehend him. The burglar in this story is an archetypical comic character dressed in a raccoon mask and striped prison uniform. Mog frightens the burglar, who makes a noise by dropping something, thus awakening the family who are able to call the police to apprehend the baddie. It just so happens that a burglar arrives that night. The plot of the story takes off after Mog is shut outside for being a nuisance. This lends a gentleness to the character, and allows young readers to empathise. She doesn’t ‘steal’ an egg at breakfast time she ‘forgets’ she only has eggs as treats. Mog’s mischievousness is reframed as forgetfulness. This story is mostly a character sketch of a mischievous cat called Mog. WHAT HAPPENS IN MOG THE FORGETFUL CAT Perhaps the man will let me in. If there is a spectrum of personification when it comes to animals in picturebooks, Mog is still very much cat rather than person, but Judith Kerr manages to convey the idea that she indeed knows exactly what goes on in cat’s world - what cats worry about, what they dream about and what their main concerns must be. You’ll see from the illustrations that this is a book of its time, with 1970s fashion and a traditional nuclear family set-up, including a population that, compared to modern day London, is overwhelmingly white. Mog The Forgetful Cat is the story that introduced Mog to young readers at the beginning of the 1970s.
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