Book Review: Chester's Masterpiece, Series Title #3 by Mélanie Watt

Chester gets sticky notes about the whereabouts of:

• author/illustrator copies of Augustine the penguin, Leon the Chameleon, and Scaredy the Squirrel series; and
• computer mouse, transparent tape, and watercolor brushes and paints.

He has picture book deadlines so he chooses to ignore the questions yellowing blank lined loose leaf sheets of notebook paper and complete his plagiarized story about Christmas Eve and red marker-drawn reindeer and Santa illustrations. Getting caught in literary theft is humiliating enough to provoke writer’s block.

But mention of the ingredients common to the best stories jostles Chester’s train of thought toward the hallmarks of great stories. He knows that inputs determine outputs in:

• action;
• drama;
• horror, humor;
• romance; and
• science fiction, suspense. 

The reminder leaves Chester over-confidently joking about super-ingredients as:

• brilliant as cupcake sprinkles;
• colorful as pizza;
• commonsensical as flour;
• crunchy as cat food;
• funny as gummy bookworms;
• sweet-ending as sugar; and
• tasty as spices.

It makes him trigger-happy enough to challenge Mélanie to penciled versus red-markered jungle settings, to his detriment. Shame-faced Chester nudges through rude, unhappy-ending tales about:

• Captain Cat buying The Claw-sea yacht -- whose litter is gold-plated -- with gold and jewels co-discovered by Skipper Mouse -- who makes a grilled sandwich from buried Swiss cheese -- before being eaten by a whale, to be expelled into an Antarctic polar bear’s jaws; and
• paper clip-wielding, super-villainous Dr. Meanmouse drowning and Supercat inspiring Superhero statues. 

The deep truth of what goes around comes around opens the way to Chester’s come-uppance when the red marking pen runs out of ink. Equipment failure provokes Chester’s penciled, watercolored caricaturization as a beret-sporting, striped shirt- and suspender pants-wearing Frenchman. Chester nevertheless questions who really gets the last laugh since author/illustrator books and supplies respectively fill kitty litter and recycling bins.

Chester's Masterpiece therefore provides pre-schoolers to third-graders, four-year-olds to eight-year-olds and way beyond cultural enrichment and educational entertainment, thanks to:

• Chester's illustrations digitized from paper, red marker, and tape;
• Kids Can Press Ltd.’s publishing arrangements;
• Tara Walker’s editorship; and
• Mélanie Watt’s design, illustrations digitized from pencil and watercolor, and storyline set in Carnation and Kidprint text. 

My special thanks to talented artists and photographers/concerned organizations who make their fine images available on the internet.

Author-illustrator Mélanie Watt has to leave lots of yellow sticky (post-it) notes for Chester the cat as he wrestles to debut as an author.
Post-it Notes
Consequencefree at English Wikipedia, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Post-it.jpg

Chester the cat identifies cupcake sprinkles for brilliance as an important ingredient for a good story.
sprinkles and buttercream icing on vanilla sponge cupcakes, baked by Rosie and Richard's (rosieandrichards.co.uk): Sarah Howells, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Gallery_1.JPG

In one of Chester the cat's story attempts, his hero, Supercat, confronts Dr. Meanmouse, a "horrible and cheesy villain" with a plan to burst the world with a pointy paper clip.
giant paper clip at BI Commercial College near Oslo, southeastern Norway: Lars Roede, CC BY SA 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons @ https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:BI-binders.jpg

"Chester's Masterpiece by Melanie Watt | Kids Book Read Along" (8:41)
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UiVK-3zVc3g

When Chester's red marker runs out of ink, he capitulates and returns Mélanie's art supplies and other paraphernalia, which he had hidden in his litter tray!
cat with litter; World Trade Centre, Poznań, west central Poland: Krzysiu "Jarzyna" Szymański (Krzysiu Jarzyna), CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:MTP_Cat_Show_2230098.JPG

Watt, Mélanie. 2010. Chester's Masterpiece. Toronto, Ontario, Canada; and Tonawanda, NY, U.S.A.: Kids Can Press Ltd.