I recently picked up Laura Gehl’s 2018 My Pillow Keeps Moving!…and I don’t know why.
I don’t mean that dismissively: I enjoyed the book, and would recommend it. I just have no clue how it ended up in my library queue. It might be because Christopher Weyant did the illustrations, and Weyant has both published cartoons in the New Yorker and illustrated other books I’ve enjoyed, like Anna Kang’s You Are (Not) Small.
In any case, My Pillow Keeps Moving! combines several elements to shape an enjoyable picture book. The first element is likeable and sympathetic animal main characters: a cat and a dog who appear to be strays–it is clear they are shivering–until the dog sneaks into The Pillow Place. They’re having a pillow sale, and a man accidentally buys the dog, thinking he’s a pillow. That’s the second element: adults making mistakes so obvious that kids will see them.
The third element is that when this customer tries to return the pillow because it is broken, and, as the title indicates “keeps moving.” The pillow salesman denies there is anything wrong with the pillow, so that third element is reversal. This reversal sets up a pattern, because the man goes to buy a footstool–and accidentally buys the dog again. Kids will anticipate the pillow salesman will turn down the attempt to return the (dog) broken footstool, waving it away with fairly ridiculous counterarguments.
The pattern continues when the man buys a coat: purchase, dog works badly as a jacket, man tries to return, salesman denies. Smiles and laughs. After that, though, the pattern breaks. The man recognizes the dog is a bad jacket, but good as Jackie, the man’s new companion.
The two go off so the man can buy a hat…where the cat is waiting for his turn at a home.
In addition to this skillful structure, the book does a good job of sketching in the chills and loneliness of stray animals without being completely depressing.
