Three stories you can read to your cat

Sara Swan Miller

Book - 1997

A cat hears three stories about a dull rainy day, a yummy bug, and a good day of destruction in the house.

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Subjects
Genres
Readers (Publications)
Published
Boston : Houghton Mifflin 1997.
Language
English
Main Author
Sara Swan Miller (-)
Other Authors
True Kelley (illustrator)
Physical Description
unpaged : ill
ISBN
9780613152327
9780395788318
Contents unavailable.
Review by Booklist Review

Gr. 1^-3. Shy, bold, and feisty by turns, Kelley's cat is positively purrfect as it stalks and capers its way through three episodes that depict a feline's winning ways. Pictures catch a range of emotions--from a sly stare when Kitty sees a tempting bug to a self-satisfied gleam after it has spent a wonderful day doing naughty things. Miller's stories, written using the pronominal you ("One day you [the cat] woke up early"), are funny as well as easy to read, making them great for new chapter-book readers, especially ones who have cats to cozy up with. --Stephanie Zvirin

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

Miller and Kelley follow up their clever Three Stories You Can Read to Your Dog with a blithe feline equivalent. Each of three stories includes animated descriptions of prowling and yowling, told in the second person as though a housecat were both main character and willing audience. "The Rainy Day" portrays a restless protagonist on a wet morning: "You went to sit under the dining room table. `Maybe some food will fall,' you said to yourself. `Sometimes food does that.' " The next entry, "The Yummy Bug," details the suspenseful pursuit of a spotted beetle. And the ironic "The Good Day" finds the hero trying to "be good" by gnawing a houseplant ("`Mmmmm,' you said to yourself. `That was very, very good' ") and excavating the kitchen trash (" `This is better than good,' you said. `This is GREAT!' "). Miller employs snappy sentences, a keen eye for kitty foibles and a quirky wit. Kelley's uncomplicated pen-and-ink and watercolor images show an attention to familiar cat poses; a pampered and plump gray cat crouches, bathes itself, climbs curtains and sharpens its claws. Even if cats don't deign to sit through a reading, this chapter book (like its canine companion volume) provides plenty of amusement for humans. Ages 7-10. (Mar.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by School Library Journal Review

Gr 2-4‘Three short tales to share with your favorite four-legged companion. The cat survives the tedium of "The Rainy Day" by napping, washing every body part imaginable, waiting for food to fall from the table, and finally willing the weather to clear. "The Yummy Bug" is stalked, captured, consumed, and eventually spit out as awful-tasting. Good behavior is in the eye of the beholder in the final story, when the frisky feline shreds the curtains, nibbles on a plant, and overturns the garbage before curling up and thinking, "My friend will by happy. I did not do one bad thing." Both words and pictures capture the contrary, persnickety, independent nature of these beloved animals. Written with a light touch, the humorous tales read aloud nicely. From the endpapers, decorated with a variety of breeds, to the clever borders that set off each chapter, the watercolor-and-ink illustrations are filled with amusing details. The gray-and-white feline featured in the pictures has quite a repertoire of expressions, ranging from pointedly disinterested to openly disdainful to perfectly contented. A delightful read for literate pets and their humans.‘Joy Fleishhacker, School Library Journal (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Horn Book Review

Told in second person--'You sunk your claws into the rug. You worked and worked . . . until your claws were good and clean and sharp'--the three stories describe activities that commonly engage housecats, but the text will not hold the attention of many readers--or their feline companions. Although the lively watercolor and ink illustrations are amusing, they do not salvage the repetitive and mundane text. From HORN BOOK 1997, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.