Childrens’ Books Featuring Cats

I don’t know about you, but we at Storysmith are becoming slowly but irrecoverably obsessed with Chi’s Sweet Home: the hilarious Japanese cat-based comic series, printed in these beautiful compendiums (we’ve got the first 4 volumes…). If you haven’t heard the good news yet, buckle up! Volume 1 starts with Chi lost and confused, separated from her mother as a kitten and looking for her home and struggling to adjust to the tribulations of life (relatable, hey?).

Ah, Maine… The land of Stephen King novels, but also the prowling-ground of Dahlov Ipcar’s fictional Farmer’s Cat. Where does he go for all those hours, under the cover of darkness?

Turns out, lots of places: to visit the hens, to watch the cars go by on the nearby roads, to hunt rabbits in the vegetable garden, and to hang out with the other neighbourhood cats: “Sometimes they fight with each other, and sometimes they sing cat songs together–mournful, sweet, wailing songs–the kind that only cats like.” We follow the cat and see the night-time world through his excellent night-vision and Ipcar’s awesome illustrations. A proper treasure of a picture book.

Bertram and Alan are very different (one tidy, the other messy, etc.). Bertram’s feeling lonely in his flat so gets a cat, Pierre (relatable once again!). But Pierre prefers Alan’s sofa to Pierre’s. “After the all the best thing about having a cat is snuggling up together and watching telly”… too true! A beautifully illustrated heart-warming tale about making friends.

Pearl is upset about moving to a new house, and struggling to adjust to life in a new city and a new school… until Mooncat shows up at her window, “huge, fluffy and bright as the moon”! She invites her in for breakfast and before she knows it they are gallivanting around the city together. Sounds great!

Building a racing car out of an old washing machine, Asta seeks to prove to the alley cats that she’s got what it takes to win in the Kibble Hill Rally! A big cast of cat characters including Professor Kim and Ludlow (who appears to be racing in a gourd of some description?) and great easter egg details… (including a little hunt-and-find game to play once you’ve finished).

More kibble-sized cat-based stories from the author of Chi’s Sweet Home! FukuFuku is a delightful little manga series about, you guessed it, a sweet (but misbehaving) little kitten called FukuFuku and her doting old Japanese owner! Visual comedy galore!

An exceptional picture book about Cat and his many appointments throughout a normal week: visiting Sebastian the upstairs-intellectual, Mina’s balcony, and over to Granny Yvonne’s for lunchtime. What a busy, civilised cat! We wish we knew what our cats got up to. They always have places to be!

The latest in the Jasper & Scruff series is as good a place to start as any with Nicola Colton’s brilliant books! Jasper (fancy chef cat) and Scruff (dog who mostly cares about his stomach) are the proprietors of the immensely popular Paws Diner… but wait! Sabotage! Across the street the new Sophisticafé is on the verge of opening to tremendous fanfare, and their main course looks pretty dang similar to the Paws Diner’s signature Cheese Monsieur… Hilarious antics in that intermediary reading range somewhere between picture book and chapter book, great for early readers around 4-6ish.

Maybe the only book on this list where the cat is a supporting character? But there’s nothing wrong with that! Billy and her sidekick, Fatcat, take on a terrible beast. Billy & the Beast (and Billy & the Dragon) is a surprising and hilarious picture book from one of our favourite children’s authors.

All you really need to know about this book is the premise: an alien called Leonard gets to spend a month in the body of a human for a month (as is their custom on the 300th birthday) but accidentally ends up in the body of a stray cat! Whoops! What else do you want? Entertaining and wise story about finding family in strange places for children 9ish and up.

Entertaining as well as genuinely informative, even for those of us who believe wisdom only comes with age! A lovely little rhyming board book that helps you empathise with cats and realise how they’re feeling, when they want to be touched, and what they might not like you to do. There’s a puppy edition too!