Episode 54 - I Am A Cat And I Like To Scratch (Into the Wild and Cat Nap) with special guest Liam

The headline news here is that we've got a special guest! Liam is our first young guest and he's brought us his second favourite book: Into the Wild, by Erin Hunter. Into the Wild is the introduction to the Warrior Cats series which is massive and hugely popular, but that we'd never heard of because we're a tiny bit too old. We talk worldbuilding, cat gods and tragic character deaths. How many cat deaths are too many cat deaths? Liam thinks it's more than four per book. Into the Wild is fast paced, exciting and very very readable. It's about a kittypet who runs away from home and becomes a wild warrior cat. Can he earn his place among those who were born free? Will he graduate to become a full member of Thunderclan? It's all up in the air in this rip-roaring middle grade action fantasy (with great maps - get the physical book for the maps alone.)

Then we go all gooey over Cat Nap, by Brian Lies. This is just a treasure of a picture book. Super simple story with stunning, high effort art. Our protagonist is Kitten, who steps through a poster advertising the Metropolitan Museum of Art in hot pursuit of a mouse. The mouse leads Kitten through a series of artworks, and as they move from bas relief to painting to sculpture, cat and mouse change shape and style to fit with their surroundings. It's very lovely. You'll want to look at it for ages.

Matt is on tour as we speak. Go here to find out if Fixing is coming to a theatre near you.

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What A Wonderful Day is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License by Shane Ivers of silvermansound.com