~ borrowed from the Library

SCAT, CAT! by Alyssa Capucilli (of BISCUIT fame) is at the beginning First Grade reading level. The text consists 226 words.

Here's some text from two pages:

There was a cat.
It was a small cat.
It was a striped cat.

It was a lost cat.
The cat walked and walked.

The rest of the book consists of of dogs, cats, bakers, barbers, and other critters and people telling kitty to SCAT! The small cat ends up sitting on a chair and being greeted by a boy with food in hand in the morning.

~
The artwork in this book is cute and appealing. The story will probably appeal to young children, but personally it got me down. It probably doesn't pay to over-analyze a children's primer (lol) but that's a lot of rejection.

This book would actually be a good one to share with little ones. There are quite a few animals to point out, and careers to introduce. Animals include dogs, cats, pidgeons, duck, geese, frog, owl, bat and more. People include the barber and baker mentioned previously, as well as a bus driver.

I thought the ending was strange. It sort of runs contrary to the idea we were given that the kitten has no home. Again, too much analysis is a silly thing. ( )

About a stripped cat that is lost. It receives the same comment of "Scat, cat!" from everyone he comes into contact with. On his journey, the cat runs into a dog, a bird, other cats, a barbur, a busdriver, a duck, a frog, a goose, an owl, a goose, a bat, and a skunk, but all they ever say is "Scat, cat!" Eventually the cat finds a house with a comfy chair on the front porch, and exhausted from searching for his home, he fall into a deep sleep. In the morning a boy comes out of the house, but remarkably he does not say "Scat, cat!", but instead he says, "I've been looking for you!" The art work is simple but effective in getting the message across. For example, the cat's facial expressions change to reflect his mood throughout the story.