The Return of the Killer Cat

Anne Fine's The Return of the Killer Cat is a very funny story for 8 year olds, told by Tuffy, a cat who is NOT sorry.

What happens

Ellie and her family are going on holiday for a whole week. Tuffy is thrilled. A week of lolling on top of the telly and flattening the flower beds with nobody nagging!

Except Mrs Tanner can't cat-sit this time. So the vicar is moving in.

Reverend Barnham doesn't like cats on sofas. He won't open a fresh tin until Tuffy's eaten yesterday's lumpy grub. And he really doesn't like Tuffy's gang holding a yowling talent contest under his bedroom window.

It all goes downhill from there. There's a chase, a pear tree, a tow rope tied to a car bumper and one very unexpected flight over the garden hedge.

Tuffy lands SPLAT in the straw basket belonging to Melanie next door. And Melanie has been praying very hard for a soft, furry pet of her very own...

What follows involves a lacy bonnet, a doll's frilly nightie and three meals a day of tuna and cream (Tuffy doesn't complain once).

The fun is all in Tuffy's voice. He talks straight to you, and he's rude, smug and completely sure none of it was his fault. "Okay, okay!" he keeps saying, and then he explains exactly why you'd have done the same.

Your reader will be in on the joke long before the grown-ups are, which makes it even funnier. Who doesn't love knowing more than the vicar?

The chapters are short and punchy, so it's a great one for a reader building up to longer books. It's brilliant read aloud as well, if you fancy doing a very sulky cat voice.

What to read next

If you've got a reader who loves a narrator who's naughty and knows it, Tuffy is in top form in The Diary of a Killer Cat too. That one kicks off with a dead bird on the carpet, and he isn't sorry about that either.