So I’ve had cats as far back as I can remember. I was a little girl who loved cats and now I’m a big girl who loves cats.  As a big girl who loves cats I became enamoured with Terry Prachett’s The Amazing Maurice and his Educated Rodents. It’s definitely one I would have read in my teen years had it been released 20 years earlier.  I love this book so much I centred one of my Masters papers around it; as a stunning version of the Pied Piper story.

Maurice is a brilliant cat who has a human patsy, his front really. He also has a group of mice in his employ. Using both resources he sets up a scam to send in the rats to invade a town and then have his human ride to the rescue offering to get rid of the rats; for a fee of course. This is a brilliant story told with Terry Pratchett’s usual snarky voice.  I miss it and him.

As a little girl who loves cats, my passion was once again manifested, as most of my passions were, in the books I read. In grade 3 I took a book out of the library called The Hotel Cat by Esther Averill. It’s the story of Tom who wins himself the job of Hotel Cat because he’s such a good mouser. There Jenny, the black cat who wore a red scarf and Checkers and Pickles the Firehouse cat. Together they formed the Cat Club. They looked after each other and made plans for the Stardust (?) Ball.

I loved this book so much I kept in my desk so I could read it over and over again. I can’t remember if I renewed the book or just pretended it was lost, but I know I kept it in my desk for a long time. I thought it would be pretty cool to be like Mrs. Wilkins, an elder resident who could communicate with cats. Not the elderly part the communicating part.

There’s been some great cats in book history but I don’t remember many particular cats owning their own books like Tom and Maurice. The Cat in the Hat maybe. Tao from The Incredible Journey?  Crookshanks and Mrs. Norris from Harry Potter are great characters but supporting characters at best. I did discover, however, a series called the Warriors, the story of four clans of wild cats, which appears to be very popular with my middle school girls. It a series written by a group of authors under the name Erin Hunter (a la Nancy Drew). I’ve read the first few books and thoroughly enjoyed them. My students tell me there are many more though. They’re right. This series is a monster. Thirty-four books in the core series (and counting) with additional manga and e-book versions to add additional detail should you require it. I don’t think I’m quite up to that many.

Any cat-centric chapter books you remember? I’d love to know what else I might be forgetting.