My grandchildren were choosing library books, mostly rather stereotypical books such as graphic superhero stories, or rather fluffy fairy books. I wanted at least one or two that I would enjoy reading aloud to them, so when I spotted a couple of shortish books by Hilary McKay, it was an easy decision to add them to their stash. Three years ago I checked out ‘Happy and Glorious’ by the same author, for similar reasons, and my grandson, five at the time, loved it so much that I bought it and its sequel for him.
‘The Cat in the Bag’ is one of the books, and when I was looking after the children one morning I decided to read it aloud. It’s not as hilariously funny as the ‘Queen’ books, but still written in the author’s light, slightly ironic style. It’s about two cousins called Mellie and Lulu who are spending a week at Lulu’s house, looked after by their opinionated but kind grandmother, whom they call ‘Nan’.
Nan is very fond of her granddaughters, who I suppose are about nine or ten, but she disapproves of Lulu’s menagerie: two dogs (one old, one young), some guinea pigs, rabbits, a parrot and some goldfish. However she’s thankful that they don’t have a cat like the neighbour, Charlie, whose cat brings in mice, birds and various other unwelcome ‘gifts’.
So, predictably, the girls find a cat. It’s in a large bag on their doorstep and we never discover where it came from. Lulu lets it out and they secretly give it some food - it’s a huge and friendly marmalade cat. It stays the night on Lulu’s bed and is discovered by Nan, only to have it disappear not long afterwards, which lead to an extensive search of the neighbourhood.
I could guess what was coming; this is a story for children so nothing bad happens, and there’s a delightful ending which my grandchildren had not guessed. But the writing, as I’ve come to expect with Hilary McKay, is excellent; it made a good read-aloud, and I finished reading it in just a couple of sessions. My grandchildren both thoroughly enjoyed the book. While both are now reading for themselves, they still love being read to, and the style of this book makes it good to read aloud, as some of the subtleties might otherwise be missed.
I would recommend it as a read-aloud for children who are ready to listen to chapter books like this - though the chapters are short so it wasn’t difficult to read two or three at a time. My grandchildren are five and eight; I would think children from about four to ten might enjoy it. And fluent readers of around eight and upward might well like to read this to themselves, although the style is such that, as an adult, it was fun to read too.
Apparently there are several other books about 'Lulu', and this is the third in the series. I'm quite tempted to look for the others after reading this.
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