Hate That Cat by Sharon Creech

Hate That Cat by Sharon Creech
Copyright 2008 Joanna Cotler Books,
an imprint of HarperCollins
Children (ages 9-12)/verse
148 pages

I went on a library run on Friday, allegedly just to drop off some of our excessive cookbook collection -- those that contain mostly recipes with too many ingredients we can't acquire in our backwards little town. Well, I did drop off the donations. But, I made the mistake of browsing, looking up a few titles in the library database and spending a little time in our library's perpetual sale corner.

Result: The bag didn't come home empty. Ah, well. I found Hate That Cat in the children's new releases, a little table that I invariably end up pawing through (oh, hahaha, that's kind of punny!). That bright red cover with the simple but obviously very grumpy cat made me smile. I flipped through the book and found what little I read funny and light, then on Friday night I read the entire book before turning out the light.

Did the book live up to the flip test? It certainly did. I needed something extremely light to read on Friday. I can't even remember why; maybe I was tired or got to bed late. Hate That Cat is actually a follow-up to the book Love That Dog, which was published in 2001. I didn't know that till I looked up the cover image, but it didn't surprise me because of the way the story is told. Hate That Cat is Jack's story, written apparently as a series of class assignments. Jack writes about how he loved his dog and hates the annoying and haughty neighborhood cat who drops nuts on his head, scratches Jack when he tries to help it down out of a tree and just generally bothers Jack. The cat has an attitude.

Eventually, though, Jack gets a kitten for Christmas and is shocked at how much he enjoys his new little friend. And, then the kitten disappears and he discovers something very surprising about the neighborhood feline. Hate That Cat is funny, sweet, touching and both surprising and predictable at the same time. I like the way the author patterned many of the verses after poems by well-known authors but told an original story.

Also acquired at the library: A used copy of Kafka on the Shore by Haruki Murikami for a quarter. What a steal! I also checked out a Charles de Lint book that looks very light. We'll see if I get around to reading that one before it's due back at the library.

And, the weird thing is: I've been wafting past the "G" section and peering at the Newbery shelves, each time I go to the library, for months (the Newbery bit being a recent addition to my route). I never bothered to actually check the database in order to seek out Neil Gaiman's The Graveyard Book. Surely one would eventually show up, right? Guess what? My library only has one copy -- ONE! -- of The Graveyard Book. It's a Newbery winner, people!!! And, they still don't have a copy of The Dead and The Gone by Susan Beth Pfeffer. This is why I own so many books. I need to move to a more civilized place. "More civilized" = "City with gigantic, extensive, diverse library stock". Like the library in Ann Arbor, Michigan. I loved the Ann Arbor public libraries.

--End of Rant--

Also recently finished:

A Reliable Wife by Robert Goolrick and
I Do Again by Cheryl and Jeff Scruggs

Hubby and I went for a walk in the Jewish cemetery to snap some photos, yesterday. You will surely understand why this is amongst my favorite headstones:

Off for my daily walk. Happy reading!

Bookfool in exercise duds