Bodega Cat: The Book
I like bodegas, and I like cats. So I’d likely like the picture book Bodega Cat by Louie Chin (Pow! 2019) even if it was just okay. But it’s great! It’s probably the most lovingly detailed collection of bodega illustrations around. You could think of it as a really well-priced art book.
I didn’t figure out what a bodega was until I went to New York for the first time at 21, in the mid 1990s. Even if I’d heard a definition, it was one of those things I had to experience to understand. But if I’d had this book growing up, I would’ve been able to at least partly get it, both what the bodega is and its unique appeal: the service, the convenience, the homeyness, the stuff. I prefer Bodega Cat’s sincere, rather than SNL’s gently mocking, celebration of the institution and its cats. Its genius is that it’s part grocery, part deli, part hardware store, part drugstore, part appliance store, part post office, and, sometimes, part pet store.
Chip (as in potato), a sweet and a bit mischievous orange tabby who “runs” the bodega in the book, narrates, walking readers through a day, from the morning deliveries to the kids getting intense after-school snacks to dinner in the back with the owners of the Korean deli across the street. Chip bops a roll of toilet paper from above the drink cooler onto a customer’s head, and it feels so real. Chip rings up a can of Coke for $922.58 cents (we always discuss this page: the crazy price and the customer’s disgruntled expression at it, and their daughter’s joy at seeing Chip press the cash register buttons with such focus).
More I love: people are seen interacting with each other as well as with tech, and the tech isn’t dystopian or an abandonment of social responsibilities. It’s just part of the scene. Like in this great depiction of the morning rush: workers chat as they place their order, two girls play a clapping game, a woman is blissing out with her twoeggsonaroll, and what I really appreciate is the kid in front, a donut hanging out of his mouth while he fiddles on his phone. Best lives being lived.
I’ve had trouble getting into graphic novels. Not out of any kind of no-pictures-in-my-grown-up-novels snobbery. (I am a snob about some things, just not that. Does this snobbery even still exist??) One problem is, I don’t know how to balance attention between the pictures and words. But Bodega Cat, like other picture books, has helped me solve this riddle; I naturally hang out with the illustrations: appreciating, looking for details.
A brilliant spread that depicts the neighborhood is a great place to spend time. Check out those soothing angles, and the angelic quality of light. That soccer game. The little groups and singles: walking, window shopping, chatting in the street. A humble and welcoming commercial stretch: groceries, hardware, Jamaican food, pizza. The bus swerving into the oncoming lane to get past double-parked cars is a brilliant and funny touch of realism. It’s ideal because it’s not ideal. Check out the alternating antennas and satellite dishes on the rooftops. And look at that bike zooming on the sidewalk — there’s little Chip, amidst all this! So big and so tiny, like all of us. Stalwart on the back of the delivery biker. “Cats make great navigators,” he says. “Well, at least I do.” I’m moved. Note that pigeon perched on the prow of the building in the foreground, like a gargoyle, warding off evil.
The book is one of those cool sanctifications of the city, of a neighborhood and its stores and people and pets. Below is a picture of a real life Chip. Who wouldn’t pay 900 dollars for a soda from this cat?
