Kick Litter is a deceptively simple book. What starts out as a joke book -- something you might buy in a novelty store -- instantly becomes something much more. The title tells us the main premise, which is that cats have to kick the litter habit ... and this book absolutely fulfills its promise of giving us the complete method for toilet training any cat...
But immediately we recognize that DiCarlo has something else for us. A pair of seductive characters that remind us very cleverly, and charmingly, of the conflicting tendencies in human addictions. If you don't have cats, you'll wish you did. If you do have cats -- well, don't read this book around them; they'll see it in your face that you wish you had *these* cats. The language and the illustrations are part of the addiction, I think ... A.A. Milne comes to mind.
This isn't really a book about animals though, it's a marvellous little poem of words and image. Perhaps it would be too much to say that it's a microcosm of post-humanist philosophy. Ok, yeah, that's too much. But I predict that like Pooh, but maybe in a more kitschy way, "Kick Litter" will sprout a number of imitators, and eventually a fondness for spin-offs that find the stuff of life in these admirable and noble little self-help characters.