The Secret Diary of a Naughty Cat

 

Naughty Cat here - I'm going to let you in on some secrets about us cats and our humans. Oh, and I'll give you some advice as well about how to be...well, a naughty cat!

Title: The Secret Diary of a Naughty Cat
Series: Naughty Cat
Author: Daniel Riding
ISBN: 9781521382776       
Language: English

Released: 26th May 2017

Classification: Fiction
Themes: cause and effect, perspective

This is the diary of...well, Naughty Cat (he can't remember his original name)...who is imparting his thoughts about humans and their strange traits. Most importantly he is giving advice to those kittens to come on how exactly to train their humans and what ways to have fun with them (at the human's expense).

When I saw this book I loved the cover and the title. I've owned a cat for most of my life and I am well aware of their unique little traits, quirks, and annoyances. Naughty Cat really gives voice to that cat you see running around like a mad-thing, or proudly exiting the kitty litter box while everyone gags at the smell, or of course that frustrating experience of buying food for your cat - only for it to sit there looking at you with the "Seriously?" look.

I would definitely use this book in the classroom or at home. This book would appeal to children between the ages of about 5-10 years and I think would do well particularly engaging reluctant readers. The sentences are quite simple and easy to be understood - there are no unnecessary "flowery" descriptions to bog down a reader - and the flow...I mean, I just wanted to keep reading! I read the book over two nights because I wanted to stretch it out. The length of the chapters means that this is an ideal chapter book - so one chapter at a time would hold your students' attention.

Learning opportunities - not sure where to start! I think I'll sit down and put together a Teaching Ideas page because this book could be used in so many ways. Perspective (point-of-view) writing would be top of my list; comparison of human and cat perspective as well; for science a cat observation task...

Yep, this one's a winner on all levels!

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