Rating: Not for me

Reading level: Mid-late Elementary

This was another review request from my dear friend Rachel (thanks, Rach!), who has very high standards for the books she puts in the hands of her sweet girls.

The author was inspired by a group of cats she’d see congregating in the garden at night. She interviewed the owners to learn more about each of their personalities, and uses imagination to fill in the details. The premiss is a shy, homeless little black cat who feels she has no special talents, but you need to have one to be voted into the Cat Club. The club’s core values are: Loyalty, Fidelity, Truth, and Dues, the last of which makes me chuckle because the cats often mention they’re all broke.

Possible Concerns:

  • Identity based on talents and gifts. Jenny feels she has to have special skills to be in the Cat Club. I like to think people (and cats) have value just by being who they are, even if they don’t have jaw-dropping talents.
  • Luck. The book includes three short references to luck. (1) The cat who works at the fire station walks around the ladder for luck, (2) Jenny wears her scarf for good luck, and (3) a cat says he can’t share his poem before the big event because that’s bad luck.
  • Over-valuing money. Captain Tinker says Money isn’t everything, but Jenny’s friend says he’s not so sure about that. I think this is a light-hearted play on the difficulties of making it in New York.
  • Questionable cultural respect. There is one point when a friend of Jenny’s puts on an “Indian headdress” and I am not sure if it is culturally appropriate.
  • Smoking. Captain Tinker occasionally smokes his pipe.
  • Suspicious dancing. At there is a party of cats doing a dance called the “tumba rumba.” Jenny is told she is too young to participate and is made to wait in a corner by herself. Jenny ends up practicing a different jolly dance which the cats love so much and join in. So it ends up being a happy story, and nothing particular is suggestive about the dance except the name and the suggestion that she is too young to participate.
  • Halloween spookiness. There is mention of an event that happened on Halloween when Jenny rescued another cat’s flute. They don’t go into great detail, but the fact that it happened on Halloween just sort of adds to a spooky feel that is sometimes there.
  • Ghosts. In the final chapter, a cat who loves to write is challenged to write a poem that is scary. The poem ends up telling about a ghost of a pirate cat who did reckless pillaging without worrying about kindness and finally came to an end in a battle. Now he’s on his next life (of nine, naturally) writing stories and trying to do better.

Things I like:

  • Courage. Jenny learns to be brave: she speaks up at the Cat club to advocate for cats in need.
  • Welcoming. Jenny debates whether to invite some new cats to the club but ends up inviting them.
  • Priorities. Dogs steal Jenny’s scarf and keep it in their den. Later, there is a fire when the naughty dogs play with matches. Jenny worries about her scarf but learns to prioritize others’ safety first.
  • Repentence. Jenny makes mistakes and apologizes.
  • Hospitality. Jenny invites new homeless cats in; she gets upset when the new cats cramp her style. She acts out but then asks forgiveness and learns to share her space.
  • Forgiveness. Jenny takes an opportunity to extend welcome to a cat that snubbed her.

I won’t have this book in my home, but I did enjoy some parts of it. I will say that the writing style was lovely and I think this book had a bit of a dark feel to it because some of the cats’ adventures were at night, and I think I’d look for other books by this author to see if they might still have the sweet creative side without so much of the spookiness.