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Library | Call Number | Status |
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Searching... McMinnville Public Library | Rylant | Searching... Unknown |
Searching... West Salem Branch Library | JP Rylant | Searching... Unknown |
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Summary
Summary
The sweet tale of a forgotten kitty without a home who is found and adopted by the kind bakers of a charming town. The book includes many easy-to-follow recipes for the cookies mentioned inside.
Author Notes
Cynthia Rylant was born on June 6, 1954 in Hopewell, Virginia. She attended and received degrees at Morris Harvey College, Marshall University, and Kent State University.
Rylant worked as an English professor and at the children's department of a public library, where she first discovered her love of children's literature.
She has written more than 100 children's books in English and Spanish, including works of fiction, nonfiction, and poetry. Her novel Missing May won the 1993 Newbery Medal and A Fine White Dust was a 1987 Newbery Honor book. Rylant wrote A Kindness, Soda Jerk, and A Couple of Kooks and Other Stories, which were named as Best Book for Young Adults. When I was Young in the Mountains and The Relatives Came won the Caldecott Award.
She has many popular picture books series, including Henry and Mudge, Mr. Putter and Tabby and High-Rise Private Eyes. (Bowker Author Biography)
Reviews (5)
School Library Journal Review
K-Gr 2-With simple acrylics accented with cake-decorating squiggles, Rylant illustrates her saccharine story of an orphan cat fawned over by the bakers and visitors to a cookie store. The bakery is part of a strip of specialty shops that include Martha Jane's Bookshop and its canine matchmaker introduced in Rylant's The Bookshop Dog (Scholastic, 1996). Unlike her doggy drama, though, there isn't any tension here, just a low-key description of the cat's largely indolent lifestyle. Readers learn that one of the bakers in this doll-like town found the scrawny kitty while opening the shop several years earlier, nursed him to health on cream and cookie dough, and, with the consent of the other employees, designated him the store mascot. The children adore him and let him lick drops of milk from their fingers while they eat their snacks. Recipes for seven treats follow the story (no mention of adult supervision being necessary). Bold colors and find-the-kitty double-page spreads will appeal to preschoolers (who won't know what ginger creams and bachelor buttons are, just that they probably taste good) and the Pleasantville perfection will give them sweet, reassuring dreams. Cat Heaven on Earth for this lucky feline.-John Sigwald, Unger Memorial Library, Plainview, TX (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Publisher's Weekly Review
PW called this tale of a foundling cat living a charmed life "a cat-lover's confection." Ages 7-10. (July) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Horn Book Review
This companion volume to [cf2]The Bookstore Dog[cf1] describes the daily routine of a cat who lives in a bakery and is well loved by both the bakers and customers. Reminiscent of a child's finger paintings, Rylant's simple, candy-colored artwork complements the descriptive text. Recipes for several of the many cookies that are named in the story are included at the back of the book. From HORN BOOK Fall 1999, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
There is an ineffable sweetness in Rylant's work, which skirts the edge of sentimentality but rarely tumbles, saved by her simple artistry. This companion piece to The Bookshop Dog (1996) relates how the cookie-store cat was found, a tiny, skinny kitten, very early one day as the bakers came in to work. The cat gets morning kisses, when the bakers tell him that he is ``sweeter than any cookie'' and ``prettier than marzipan.'' Then he makes his rounds, out the screen door painted with ``cherry drops and gingerbread men'' to visit the fish-shop owner, the yarn lady, and the bookshop, where Martha Jane makes a cameo appearance. Back at the cookie store, the cat listens to Father Eugene, who eats his three Scotch chewies and tells about the new baby in the parish, and sits with the children and their bags of cookies. At Christmas he wears a bell and a red ribbon, and all the children get free Santa cookies. The cheerful illustrations are done in paint as thick as frosting; the flattened shapes and figures are a bit cookie-shaped themselves. A few recipes are included in this yummy, comforting book. (Picture book. 4-8)
Booklist Review
Ages 3^-7. Just up the street from The Bookshop Dog (1996) lives a formerly stray cat, who, from season to season, rises at 6 a.m. to supervise the three bakers as they prepare the day's confections, visits with the store's regulars and neighbors, and, after closing time, retires for "sweet dreaming all night long." Cookies, cakes, gumdrops, and swirls of icing decorate the illustrations, which are done in Rylant's ingenuous artistic style; the bakers have a gingerbreadish look to them, and in several scenes the cat resembles a plump orange cookie jar. The book closes with seven (would that be a baker's half-dozen?) tempting cookie recipes for grown-ups to try. A lovely idyll, definitely fattening. --John Peters