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The fashion sphere can’t seem to get enough of Mickey and Minnie these days, and not just the expected corporate collabs like OPI cosmetics or Barney’s Electric Holiday, but actual couture showstoppers stomping the runways in fashion capitals and captured in the pages of high fashion editorials (like the above Peter Phillips mask for 2005 US Vogue). And even after having revisiting the subject a dozen times over the last five years, designers are still finding new inspiration to cut and sew a pair of mouse ears into their fashion stories.

Marcel Gerlan’s spring 2013 collection “Gerl Power” for Gerlan Jeans featured a girlie assortment of bow-veralls, polka dots and Minnie-maxi skirts as means of alleged expression of feminism for the current generation of young women.

Fashion photographer Prasad Naik’s severe and somewhat abstract analysis of the subject was the star in his 2012 fashion editorial.

Iceberg’s spring/summer 2010 collection brought impractical play suits and gimmicky mouse eared shoulders to Milan fashion week in 2009.

And Jeremy Scott, who arguably began this specific cartoon-y trend with his fall 2009 ready-to-wear collection showcased head-to-toe tributes to the cartoon icon, including his now famous Mickey Mouse sneakers for Adidas.

Reviewed by Carma Dutra, Picture Book Reviewer for the National Writing for Children Center

Title: Sneakers, the Seaside Cat

Author: Margaret Wise Brown

Illustrator: Anne Mortimer

Reading level: Ages 4-8

Hardcover: 32 pages

Publisher: Harper Trophy (April 26, 2005)

ISBN-10: 0064436225

ISBN-13: 978-0064436229

Sneakers is a plump and handsome black and white cat. If you’re a cat lover, illustrations by Anne Mortimer make you want to reach through the page and snuggle with Sneakers. He accompanies his human family to the seaside for the first time. Sneakers can hardly wait to explore the sea. He smells fish and envisions he can catch them like he catches mice. Boy does he get a surprise.

“But when he dipped his careful little white paw into the blue sea, the water was wet. And it was cold. So Sneakers decided to go out in a field and look for mice instead.”

Sneakers explores the beach all by himself. He is curious as any four or five year old would be, especially when he discovers a sea shell that is yellow and pink on the outside. He has never seen anything like it so he creeps up and listens. He hears a roar like the ocean but nothing is in it. Uninterested, he moves on and walks along the beach some more. However when he experiences something very unusual, like the seaweed popping, he says “My, I’m glad I heard that.”

Sneakers’ childlike adventures will thrill children because he is not followed around by adults or told not to wander off. He experiences the wonders of the seashore without constraint. This allows readers to use their imagination to explore the seashore.

Anne Mortimer’s illustrations are just spectacular. She captures the naturalisms of a cat so well you can almost feel the fur when you touch the picture. The expressions are the best and incredibly naturalistic. I highly recommend this for young readers.

About the Author: Margaret Wise Brown (1910 – 1952) best known for her classic “Goodnight Moon” book, was a prolific author. Sneakers, the Seaside Cat is just one of Brown’s books that has been reprinted of late with new illustrations. Brown’s gift of envisioning the world through a child’s eyes is said to be responsible for transforming children’s book writing into the art form it has become today.

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Carma Dutra is a freelance writer. Learn more about children’s writing tips and reviews of award winning books by visiting Carma’s Window at carmaswindow.blogspot.com.