South was published in 2008 by Little, Brown and Company. It was created by Patrick McDonnell.
Mooch the cat finds a bird that didn’t migrate with his buddies cuz he was dozing away. Mooch decides to help the bird find the other birds.
What a simple story and it all works very well.
The art is exquisite in this book. Some of the drawings of nature reminded me a bit of scroll painting from Asia (not quite as much detail though). Just the right amount of color is used to make everything feel very “autumny”.
The actual logic of a cat becoming friends with a bird is kind of weird... maybe Mooch is a vegetarian.
One thing that could have been changed was the use of the computer for the musical eighth notes and what little text there is. Why did McDonnell use the text “walk” on the crosswalk signal? It doesn’t really fit in.
South is a nice story. It’s a book that should be read alone since there is hardly any text in it.
