The Gift of Nothing Is a Gift Indeed

Giving gifts is an enjoyable but sometimes frustrating exercise. There are times when a birthday or Christmas rolls around, and nothing seems quite the right fit for that very special friend or relative. This is the dilemma Mooch the cat faces in The Gift of Nothing, a sparse but tender picture book by Patrick McDonnell, creator of the comic strip Mutts. Mooch and his friend Earl, a Jack Russell terrier, are the stars of that strip, and they make the transition from the funny pages to children's book perfectly.

The majority of the book concerns Mooch's search for the perfect gift for Earl. First, he has to come up with the idea. Then he has to actually find it. His clever notion is to give the dog who has everything a bit of nothing for his very own. There's something very philosophical about this idea, and as Mooch searches the TV for inspiration and scours a shopping mall, the reader is bombarded with the busy-ness of daily life. A quiet moment is hard to come by in such a noisy, materialistic world. But in silence and simplicity, the gift of a lasting friendship can be appreciated even more fully.

While The Gift of Nothing has more words in it than some McDonnell books - particularly South, which essentially has no words at all - it is still very short on text. No page features more than two sentences, and in many cases, a single sentence is stretched across several pages. The book in its entirety contains just over 30 sentences, some of which are very short. A bit of the story is dialogue, but most of it is narration.

The illustrations are just as sparse as the story, with black and pinkish-red the only colors in use throughout the book. The pages themselves are flecked with black specks, giving the pictures a little more texture. (The paper, incidentally, is recycled, supporting the anti-materialist message.) Some pages feature only one object, such as when Mooch mentally catalogues all of Earl's possessions. One page literally features nothing. The shopping mall madness and the noisy television are nearly the only instances in which there is more picture than blank space.

The Gift of Nothing demonstrates several important points. That quiet time is something to be treasured. That relationships are to be treasured even more. That "There's nothing to do" or "watch" or "buy" is rarely a legitimate complaint. In simple, soothing terms, the book urges serenity, generosity and gratitude. Most of all, it encourages friendship. This is a smaller book than most, nearly square in shape, and it's simple enough, with certain words and phrases repeated, that beginning readers should have little difficulty with this one. It might work best as a read-aloud, though, even if it's the child doing the reading, because the gift of a good book is one of the most wonderful experiences a parent and child can share.