Mog, that rather befuddled feline whose story began in Mog the Forgetful Cat, returns in this delightfully surreal nighttime adventure, finding herself shut out of her house, and growing increasingly frightened of the possible dangers - conjured up by a vivid imagination - lurking in the dark. Imagining gigantic birds with teeth, and flying dogs, she retreats to her favorite tree, where she eventually falls asleep, and dreams that she is being transported back to her family. Only it isn't her family! It's a family of mousedogbirds...

A truly bizarre little book, Mog in the Dark was originally published in 1983, and was the fourth of Judith Kerr's titles to feature this adorably confused, and sweetly silly little cat. Unlike the original entry in the series - the only other Mog title I have thus far read - this book was explicitly written for early readers, and the text (according to a brief note at the front) has a vocabulary limit of approximately fifty words. This necessitates a somewhat repetitive, and rather formulaic narrative, in comparison to the original, but also results in a somewhat sing-songy style that suits the surreal hijinks. The happy ending, after all Mog's self-inflicted trouble, is quite satisfying, despite not being entirely unexpected.

I don't know that I cared for this one, quite as much as the first, but I'm glad to have stumbled across a copy (my library system only has the first), and would definitely read more about Mog (there are seventeen titles, in total), if given the chance! ( )

I can't fault the depiction of Mog's dreams, but this is a bit of a pain to read out loud with its repetitive sentence-building. Fewer pages or more content would be an improvement. My daughter loved it. ( )

Cat's eye view of life. ( )