A Kid’s Guide to Cats

Arden Moore's A Kid's Guide to Cats is a handbook for 8 year olds who want to know what their cat is actually thinking.

What happens

It starts from a position most cat books skip. Your cat is not a small person and not an odd-looking dog. She's a cat, she thinks like one, and the whole book is about learning to read her rather than train her.

So there's a proper list of how cats differ from dogs. Cats hunt alone, they're busiest at dawn and dusk, most of them work out a litter tray on their own, and they make up to a hundred different sounds where a dog manages about twenty.

The section on sounds is the one your reader will use. A chirp means oh, there you are. A mew is a request. A drawn-out meow means somebody is displeased and you know perfectly well why. Does yours make that chattering noise at the window? That's a cackle, it's excitement and frustration at the same time, and the book warns you not to pet a cat who's doing it.

Then there's how to meet a cat you don't know, laid out in six steps. Sit down. Don't stare. Ignore her completely, which is the hard part. Let her come to you. Put out one finger and wait to see if she rubs her cheek on it.

There's also a trick with slow blinking that your reader will be trying on the nearest cat before they've finished the chapter.

The tone is chatty rather than worthy. Little boxes headed Casey's Comment let a cat butt in with his own opinion about purring and head-bonking, and there are quizzes scattered through. Cats have 473 taste buds. Dogs have 1,700. That's exactly the sort of fact an 8 year old repeats at tea.

It's an American book and it doesn't pretend otherwise. Litter box, Mom, US pet-adoption advice. Nothing confusing, but if you're using it to plan actual vet care you'll want a UK check.

One real caution. It's written for a child who has a cat or is about to get one. A child who badly wants one and isn't going to be allowed may find it a slow kind of torture.

What to read next

For a cat's own version of events, The Diary of a Killer Cat hands the whole story to Tuffy, who cannot see what the fuss is about and would like you to know he is a cat and this is practically his job.