Book Review: “Double Trouble A thru Z”
Do we know brothers and the trouble they can get into? And a human who records it in sketches and photographs? No, it’s not our household here at The Creative Cat, it’s Bugsy and Knuckles and their human HH or “Her Highness” who photographs and draws and paints the two busy boys each day.
HH, known to humans as freelance writer and artist Lou Belcher, wrote a book about their antics through the Sunday Funnies and daily cartoons published on her blog Before You Write with Bugsy and Knuckles front and center and their friend Checkers the mouse as the narrator. A mouse? Yes, a mouse!
Bugsy and Knuckles joined her life in 2013 and are definitely cats of action. Bugsy is a little mellow, Knuckles is a little hyper and generally provides the comic relief, but they go through their days together, following each other around, sleeping in a heap and communicating in the secret telepathic method famous between twins. You know they are “Double Trouble” when two of the “D” cartoons are “Down” and “Don’t”!
She refers to her two adopted cats as “The Boys” and she started to plan a book based on their exploits, then realized she had far more than one book. For the first one she decided to use the whimsical daily cartoons they had inspired.
“Bugsy and Knuckles redirected my artwork and my writing,” she said. “They brought whimsy into my life and therefore needed to have a voice through cartoons.”
When she sat down with The Boys to determine which art to use and how to organize it, she found there were so many sketches they wanted to use. In order to organize them she used the alphabet and chose four sketches with titles that began with each letter, and then also drew each letter with Bugsy and Knuckles interacting. That’s 137 sketches including the front and back covers and incidental sketches in the front of the book. That’s a lot of art in one little book!
And it makes for a fun flip through and read more than once to catch all the details in the sketches. Those boys do a lot.
And in their own special way they are supporting the SPCA of North Brevard http://www.spcanorthbrevard.com/ where HH adopted Bugsy and Knuckles.
HH, or Lou, has had cats since she attended college, and she’s also written another book, The Zen of Max, about the very special cat preceding Bugsy and Knuckles. She lives in Florida and enjoys spending equal time on her writing and artistic endeavors. Known for painting whimsical cat faces, she also spends an equal amount of time on pen and ink drawings and watercolors. She is part of the Riverview Art Studios and Gallery where she works almost daily. Lou is also the editor of Brevard Art News and Florida Book News and serves the creative community by spreading the word about writing and art events.
You can find Double Trouble A Thru Z on Amazon as well as The Zen of Max. There are links to the Amazon site for both books on her website, Http://www.beforeyouwrite.com.
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Weekly schedule of features:
Sunday: Essays, Pet Loss, Poetry, The Artist’s Life
Monday: Adoptable Cats, TNR & Shelters
Tuesday: Rescue Stories
Wednesday: Commissioned Portrait or Featured Artwork
Thursday: New Merchandise
Friday: Book Review, Health and Welfare, Advocacy
Saturday: Your Backyard Wildlife Habitat, Living Green With Pets, Creating With Cats
And sometimes, I just throw my hands in the air and have fun!
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What a cute funny book..Bugsy and Knuckles are such handsome boys..I would love to read this..Looks like your boys give it two paws up!
It was a lot of fun, Bluemoonalone!
Pingback: Sunday Selfie Blog Hop — Checkers #2 | Before You Write – Lou Belcher
That looks like a great book for kids that adults would enjoy too 🙂
It was great fun Pilch92, and I think anyone who lives with cats could relate what happens!