4th June Hug Your Cat Day

What fun! If you have a cat that likes to be hugged. There are two of us working in the library at school and we both have or have had cats. My Tonkinese loved being hugged. My co-worker's Ragdolls do not. So if you have a cat you'll know what they prefer. If you don't, your library needs Cat Chat  by Dr Jess French.

In April we had a display of Siamese Cat books and were surprised how popular they were and it got us thinking about how long it has been since we had a cat display. So today's a chance to have a bigger one. What have we got? Where to start? There are so many? Of course everyone has their favourites.

Mine are:

• My Cat Jack by Patricia Casey

• Ginger by Charlotte Voake

• Posy  by Linda Newbery and Catherine Rayner

• My Cat Likes to Hide in Boxes by Eve Sutton and Lynley Dodd

• Six Dinner Sid by Inga Moore

• The Lighthouse Keeper's Cat by Ronda and David Armitage

• Puss Jekyll and Cat Hyde by Joyce Dunbar and Jill BartonPip

• Cats Sleep Anywhere by Eleanor Farjeon and Ann Mortimer (just love this poem)

Interestingly, I think the best book for a young child who just wants to read for themselves, is The Cat Sat on the Mat by Brian Wildsmith because you can 'read' the pictures once you know what the first page says and when you see a three or four year old discover this it brings such a smile to your face because they are so excited and proud of themselves. Similarly I watched a Kindergarten child read a Flubby title in the library this week and he too was superexcited. My own daughter read the books about Morris by Vivian French as her first independent 'chapter books'. What is it with cat books?

 

The series about cats do get cult followings. There are students who love the picture book series Pete the Cat, Nicky, Mittens, Splat, Slinky Malinki, Old Tom, Cuddles  and Chester. And then once they are reading new series take over like Flubby, Killer Cat, Marshmallow Pie, Binky Space Cat, Squishy McFluff, Scratch Kitten, Magic Kitten, Atticus Claw, Toto the Ninja Cat all those cat and kitten tales by Jenny Dale, Holly Webb and Linda Newbery.

So we'll put out a large number of cat books and see how they go! This Pinterest page has the books that are in the library.

8th August International Cat Day

I haven't written about any form of Cat Day before because where do I start and finish when talking about children's books about cats, but today I had a thought. This week one of my Year 2 students was reading the picture book biography about Wanda Gag and that gave me reason to pull Millions of Cats  off the shelf to show her. What a good place to start a post about cat books!  This book was first published in 1928 and although illustrated in black and white, young students do still enjoy the repeating refrain and imagining that number of cats. Compare this with a very new 2016 cat' picture book, Brendan Wenzel's They All Saw a Cat which also has a repeating refrain, a clear, crisp cat, but looks very closely at perspective, point of view and subjectivity.

"The cat walked through the world, with its whiskers, ears and paws ...and the child saw A CAT, and the dog saw A CAT, and the fox saw A CAT. Yes, they all saw the cat.' In simple, rhythmic prose and ingeniously stylised pictures, Brendan Wenzel takes young readers on a walk alongside a cat."

And in between these two there has been a myriad of cat books and series of books with a cat as the main character.

Some favourites:
• The Cat in the Hat by Dr Seuss
• Mog the Forgetful Cat by Judith Kerr
• Diary of a Killer Cat by Anne Fine
• Splat the Cat by Rob Scotton
• Binky the Space Cat by Ashley Spires
• Pete the Cat by Eric Litwin and James Dean
• Squishy McFluff the Invisible Cat by Pip Jones
• Ballet Cat by Bob Shea

And don't forget poetry!
• The Owl and the Pussycat by Edward Lear
• Cats Sleep Anywhere  by Eleanor Farjeon
• Macavity; Mr Mistoffelees; Skimbleshanks by T.S Eliot and Arthur Robins