The First Caturday in April
April’s Kittens, by noted author and illustrator of cats Clare Turlay Newberry, received a Caldecott Honors Award in 1940. All but three of her works had cats as their main subject, and April’s Kittens was Newberry’s sixth publication with a feline plot. The storyline concerns young April whose cat Sheba has just had three kittens, Charcoal, Butch, and Brenda. April, of course, is delighted, but Dad is concerned as the family lives in an apartment that only allows one cat. What to do?
The book was originally published in 1940 by Harper and Brothers, with hand-set Bulmer type composed at the Golden Hind Press. Children’s books by major publishers were often farmed out to reprint publishers to produce more affordable editions that would be marketed to schools and libraries. Our copy, part of our Historical Curriculum Collection, is a “Special Edition” published by E. M. Hale and Company of Eau Claire, Wisconsin “by arrangement with the publishers of the regular edition.”
A Force Sensitive Phasesixer 