Starred Review ALA Booklist (Tue Nov 01 00:00:00 CDT 2022)

Starred Review The book's opening line states, "This is my shape." A gray gumdroplike thing, thinly outlined in black, the shape concernedly declares, "I am a nothing shape." The artist-narrator responds by adding more gumdrops me tiny, others elongated us a whiskered face. Voilà, a cat! The first thing the newly minted cat does is request a horse. The narrator explains that they cannot draw a horse, but they try to make the cat happy by modifying the trusty gumdrop into a surprising number of figures and objects beaver, a turtle hatching from an egg, a bear living in a large house, a barking dog that regrettably likes chasing the cat (a hastily added hill tires the pooch, thank goodness), and so on. Still determined to get a horse, the cat gives the artist a pep talk that finally results in a horse friend ing the same shape! Unfortunately, the horse wants a bicycle . . . This book is clever in its simple story and imaginative, doodlelike illustrations, which are printed on pages like graph paper. Easy text appears in both standard form and yellow speech bubbles, giving it an easy-to-follow, graphic-novel feel. Creative and loaded with humor, this story will have kids giggling in seconds and trying their hand at drawing a horse at least a gumdrop.

Horn Book (Thu Oct 03 00:00:00 CDT 2024)

A gray shape -- almost a half of an oval -- sits alone on a sheet of what looks like graph paper. "This is my shape," declares an unseen artist. Soon, this "nothing shape" transforms into a cat with the addition of smaller and longer variations of that half-oval. "I want a horse," the cat tells the artist. "I cannot draw a horse," responds the artist, who then makes some easier-to-draw friends: a squirrel, a beaver, a bunny, and a dog. The cat needs a skateboard to get away from the dog, but safety is boring and the cat insists on fun. A turtle? Too slow. The artist proceeds to draw everything but a horse. Finally, with a mound of clay, the feline fashions a trophy for the artist, which gives her confidence enough to declare: "I will try something new." The text's playful and pithy dialogue between artist and cat is easy to differentiate. Harper's illustrations make so much of so little, using a very limited palette and simple shapes, inviting readers into an artist's notebook. With a little imagination and some paper, "nothing" can become quite something.

Kirkus Reviews

Part Ed Emberley, with a dash of Pigeon, and entirely meta.The offstage narrator begins by introducing a small, gray, gumdrop of a shape set against an empty graph-paper background, saying, "This is my shape." The shape immediately establishes itself as sentient, asking, "What am I?" It then answers its own question in speech-balloon text reading, "I am a nothing shape." The narrator quickly counters this statement by transforming it into a line drawing of a cat, using the original shape as the body and adding a face, ears, limbs, and a tail. This is where the horse from the title comes in, as the cat says, "I want a horse." The narrator immediately demurs, explaining, "A horse is hard to draw. I cannot draw a horse." Ensuing pages show the narrator's attempts to please the cat by drawing many different creatures and objects (excluding the desired horse), perhaps recalling Ed Emberley's fingerprint drawing books as the little gray shape morphs into many things. While persistence and temper tantrums worthy of Willems' Pigeon don't cajole the narrator into equine drawings, the cat finally offers the narrator encouragement, and that does the trick. An ambiguous ending after the horse requests a bicycle will leave readers wondering what's in store for the characters. (This book was reviewed digitally.)Draw this one from the shelf for a fun, metafictive read. (Picture book. 4-8)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

“This is my shape,” an unseen narrator announces, introducing a smallish gray mound set against a field of graph paper. It doesn’t seem like much (even the shape itself says so), but with a few deft adds, it becomes a schematic cat with black-lined features. Bravo! But the cat, who speaks in yellow dialogue balloons, has a mind of its own, and has no interest in the animals that the narrator draws via the same basic shape. The cat reveals its desire for a “fun, fast friend”—a horse—which is the one thing that the narrator won’t even attempt: “A horse is hard to draw.” Navigating a landscape filled with objects based on the same thumbnail form, the cat continues its bargaining with “I WANT A HORSE! I WANT A HORSE! I WANT A HORSE!” before wisely changing course and fashioning a “YOU CAN DRAW A HORSE” trophy for the narrator. “You must really believe in me. I will try something new,” the voice says, and turns to create an adorable horse—one that proves equally demanding in its own difficult-to-draw request. This simply rendered meta read-aloud by Harper (Bad Sister) raises a host of interesting questions about self-imposed limitations as well as possibilities for growth. Ages 3–8. Agent: Linda Pratt, Wernick & Pratt. (Sept.)