Cat, Mouse and Moon
Within his limited domain, he stealthily preys upon a little mouse, to an audience of small pond life on the periphery. In reading Powell's lyric text, Will was struck by the mood of its setting. As he puts it, "The delight of the story is its sense of place." He fashioned his illustrations to establish the territory of the story, delineated by fence, pond, and tree against a backdrop of a luminescent sky that changes shades as night wears on. The limited use of color reflects the cautious stalking by the cat, broken only by the strong yellow moon and the dramatic red of the climactic pounce. The restrained palette and steady groundlevel view amplify the small movements of the story and allow the cat's nocturnal personality to emerge. In a final scene, the veil of night is lifted as the cat returns to home and bed where he reverts to a sleepy housecat with dreams of future nighttime adventures.
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In Cat, Mouse and Moon, a story by Roxanne Powell, a housecat ventures into the night to play out his fantasy as a sleek hunter, under the watch of an omniscient moon.
 Starting From Sketch Inside the Picture Book of Will Hillenbrand
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Reviews
From Booklist , January 1, 1995: Ages 4--7. Prowling around the countryside on a moonlit night, a black cat stalks a mouse and almost catches it. At the critical moment, the moon comes out from behind a cloud and warns Mouse of Cat's presence. If the lyrical text finds high drama in Mouse's close brush with Cat's claws, it also shares a bit of irony in the contrast between Cat's vision of himself as a mighty hunter, a Night Cat, and his readiness to demand his meal at the nearby farmhouse, where he turns into Day Cat, sleepy and domestic. Hillenbrand captures both moods to perfection in his softly shaded, full-color artwork. A mood book with just enough drama to hold the story hour crowd. Carolyn Phelan Copyright© 1995, American Library Association. All rights reserved From Horn Book: Archetypal Cat roams the countryside on a moonlit night, stalking but failing to catch Mouse and arriving home at sunrise to spend the day reaming Night Cat dreams.The shadowy illustrations, which contain such arresting details as a close-up of Cat's mouse-shaped pupils when he first sees his prey, enhance the text's account of the wildness in the average house cat. -- Copyright © 1995 The Horn Book, Inc. All rights reserved.
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