Owl & Cat: Family Is...

by Emma Apple

Join Owl & Cat on a sweet celebration of family. Growing up, growing pains, and leaving the nest. Whether family you're born with, or family you're blessed with, family is special.

Owl & Cat, picture books help children learn about the concepts of Friendship, Family, and Acceptance, with humor and an appeal that crosses the lines of culture and religion.

57 pages, Hardcover

Published November 4, 2016

About the author

Emma Apple is an author-illustrator who writes and illustrates children’s books for unique and multicultural bookshelves. Through her books, she introduces children to complex concepts and new ideas that help them understand the people and world around them.

Her debut as an independent author-illustrator, How Big Is Allah? (Aug. 2014) quickly reached #1 in the Amazon Islamic Children’s category. The at-first controversial titles in the Children's First Questions series that followed became staples in Islamic children's book collections. For Ramadan 2016, she introduced her characters and a new series, Owl & Cat, in Owl & Cat: Ramadan Is… (May, 2016).

As of 2020, Emma has written and illustrated 14 books and counting with indie publishing imprint Little Moon Books. Including Islamic, general audience, coloring & activity, bilingual, and Arabic translations.

Reviews

[Elizabeth]

*shrug* This was on Kitaab's "South Asian Kid Lit in 2016: Our Favorites," but I think it's pretty meh. I like that it opens with "Whether family you're born with or family you're blessed with, family is... special" -- allowing for expansive definitions of chosen family. But the one line pages get boring, and I don't feel like the illustrations add that much. I was also bummed that after the first couple of pages we move from having Owl and Cat in the same illustration to having illustrations of only owls or only cats. Also, nothing feels South Asian (or multicultural to me in any way) to me about this book. It feels very generic, in a way that if anything treats white Western as the default (e.g., the "Family is... More celebration!" which has a cat in a bowtie and a cat with a bouquet of flowers and a white veil, with confetti above them).