CHRISTOPHER CORR is an established author/illustrator whose many books have won him international acclaim. They include The Great Race, A Year Full of Stories, and Deep in the Woods. He studied at the Royal College of Art, and now lives and works in London as an artist and tutor at Goldsmiths University.

"In gorgeous naif artwork, we see the black-bearded emperor throwing his arms wide in his colorful robes, his tiered red headdress a visual echo of a nearby pagoda. Rat arrives first, having failed to wake his best friend, Cat, and having forded the river on the back of Ox. Ox wins second place, and so it goes, animal after animal, until Cat arrives, too late to make the zodiac and spitting mad. And that is why, children, through 'all the many years leading up to this day . . . rats have always fled from cats!'"

CHRISTOPHER CORR is an established author/illustrator whose many books have won him international acclaim. They include The Great Race, A Year Full of Stories, and Deep in the Woods. He studied at the Royal College of Art, and now lives and works in London as an artist and tutor at Goldsmiths University.

"In gorgeous naif artwork, we see the black-bearded emperor throwing his arms wide in his colorful robes, his tiered red headdress a visual echo of a nearby pagoda. Rat arrives first, having failed to wake his best friend, Cat, and having forded the river on the back of Ox. Ox wins second place, and so it goes, animal after animal, until Cat arrives, too late to make the zodiac and spitting mad. And that is why, children, through 'all the many years leading up to this day . . . rats have always fled from cats!'"

CHRISTOPHER CORR is an established author/illustrator whose many books have won him international acclaim. They include The Great Race, A Year Full of Stories, and Deep in the Woods. He studied at the Royal College of Art, and now lives and works in London as an artist and tutor at Goldsmiths University.

"In gorgeous naif artwork, we see the black-bearded emperor throwing his arms wide in his colorful robes, his tiered red headdress a visual echo of a nearby pagoda. Rat arrives first, having failed to wake his best friend, Cat, and having forded the river on the back of Ox. Ox wins second place, and so it goes, animal after animal, until Cat arrives, too late to make the zodiac and spitting mad. And that is why, children, through 'all the many years leading up to this day . . . rats have always fled from cats!'"