Unexpected Adventures of C.A.T.

Johanna Hurwitz wrote her first book when she was in fourth grade in the Bronx. It was illustrated by a classmate and they are still friends. Don’t look for the book in your school or public library because it won’t be there. The book was never published. In fact, there is just one copy in all the world, and it is kept safe in a zip-locked bag in Johanna’s briefcase. She takes it to schools to show students and tell them it’s never too early to begin writing, learning music, practicing sports, and planning ahead.Johanna didn’t publish her first book, Busybody Nora, until she was 38 years old. Since then, she has written and published more than 70 books, including The Riverside Kids series, Class Clown, Baseball Fever, and biographies of Anne Frank, Leonard Bernstein, and Helen Keller.She has also been a children’s librarian in school and public libraries. And she has traveled all over the United States and other countries talking to children, teachers, and parents about reading and writing. One of her favorite activities is exploring second-hand bookstores and discovering wonderful out-of-print books that she wasn’t looking for and didn’teven know existed. She has two children and three grandchildren. She has owned four cats, but not all at the same time.Johanna lives in Vermont and Long Island, NY.Sam Loman studied illustration at the Academy of Arts in Rotterdam the Netherlands (Bdes) and art, design and illustration at the University of Hertfordshire UK (MA with distinction). In addition to illustrating picture books, she designs products like stationery, tableware, cards, and more. Her goal is to create images that have that one special, magical touch that give people an awareness of the beautiful things around us. There are so many things that can give us joy, a smile on our face, things that amazes us: you just need to see them. She lives in the Netherlands.

Chil­dren who love their cats will be delight­ed by the premise of Johan­na Hurwitz’s new nov­el. Chaya Ann Tober not only has ini­tials that spell out her favorite ani­mal, but she also empathizes with them to the point of com­plete iden­ti­fi­ca­tion. When she acci­den­tal­ly expe­ri­ences a strange meta­mor­pho­sis, she con­firms her sus­pi­cion that her feline friends are under­ap­pre­ci­at­ed by humans. The adven­ture proves that peo­ple and cats both need compassion.Hur­witz encour­ages read­ers to recon­sid­er the assump­tion of Chaya’s friend that it’s ​"bet­ter to be a fourth grad­er than a cat." Less cen­tered on char­ac­ter devel­op­ment and more on improb­a­ble events with unex­pect­ed con­se­quences, the nar­ra­tive uses humor in its com­par­isons of species. One clever and refresh­ing ele­ment of the sto­ry is its word­play. Not only do ​"cat’s cra­dle" and ​"cat­nip" make appear­ances, but so do the less obvi­ous ​"cat­a­stro­phe," ​"cat­a­lyst," and "cat­a­log." Chaya also works her obses­sion with cats into her oth­er inter­ests, as when she plays the clar­inet solo asso­ci­at­ed with Ivan the cat in Prokofiev’s Peter and the Wolf.Chaya is Jew­ish, and her fam­i­ly is obser­vant. This part of her iden­ti­ty is nice­ly inte­grat­ed into the sto­ry and pre­sent­ed in a nat­ur­al and unas­sum­ing way. Chaya describes how to play Scrab­ble on Shab­bat with­out keep­ing a writ­ten score sheet and offers appeal­ing details about Fri­day night’s tra­di­tion­al meal. She also relates how food from dif­fer­ent cul­tures can be pre­pared accord­ing to the rules of kashrut. But reli­gious obser­vance is not the only indi­ca­tor of Jew­ish cul­ture: her fam­i­ly attends a con­cert by an Israeli musi­cian, which paints a more com­plete pic­ture of who they are. This dimen­sion of the sto­ry is per­fect for read­ers who share Chaya’s back­ground, as well as those who are less famil­iar with it.Sam Loman’s live­ly pic­tures accom­pa­ny the text, com­ple­ment­ing Hurwitz’s first-per­son nar­ra­tion. Chaya’s unwa­ver­ing loy­al­ty to cats opens the door to an unusu­al con­flu­ence of worlds, with cats, peo­ple, and Jew­ish iden­ti­ty all intersecting.The Unex­pect­ed Adven­tures of C.A.T. includes a glos­sary of cat vocab­u­lary and a brief biog­ra­phy of the author. --Emily Schneider, The Jewish Book Council"Did you ever wonder what cats do when you’re not watching? Chaya Ann Tober, or C.A.T. for short, gets a chance to find out in this book that features a “catalog” of cat words. When her cat, Ollie, won’t eat his new cat food, Cat taste tests it herself to show him how yummy it is. What she doesn’t know is that the food is magic and when the clock strikes midnight, she turns into a cat! She and Ollie have a fun time that night, out and about in the neighborhood. The next day she thinks that it must have been a dream, but she eats another spoonful of the cat food and again turns into a cat at midnight. When she and Ollie get locked out of the apartment and have to spend the night on the fire escape, it’s almost “catastrophic.” She decides to share her secret with her brother, Danny, who is skeptical at first, but when he tastes the food and later turns into a cat, he thinks this experience is amazing. When the food runs out, is their fun over? The magical premise of this book is sure to appeal to cat fans, and the illustrations are an asset to the story, but the dialogue and action are often overshadowed by long descriptive narrative passages. VERDICT It’s a creative premise, but the description-heavy chapters may bog down some readers. Purchase where there’s a need for intermediate chapter books."--School Library Journal