Sweet, but innocuous, and short. It reminded me of the kind of semi-rambling story one might make up for one's kids on the spur of the moment, when stuck on a train with no book, say. I can imagine someone recommending it for a shy child who is bullied at school, say, and I can also imagine it not helping in the slightest. The illustrations are a kind of naive primitive style by the author and have more charm than the tale itself.

So not horrible, but I'm a bit surprised it became so beloved as to spawn several sequels (this is itself a follow-up to the first one, The Cat Club), let alone be reissued years later, alone the tone is very much in keeping with the clean, spare, charming, erudite style espoused by the New York Review Children's Collection curators.

Oh, and I've never seen a stained glass window in a church which opened. Never. So that struck a discordant tone. I can accept schools for cats, but not churches popping over their stained glass windows to let a little breeze in!

(Note: 5 stars = amazing, wonderful, 4 = very good book, 3 = decent read, 2 = disappointing, 1 = awful, just awful. I'm fairly good at picking for myself so end up with a lot of 4s). ( )

A weird (but not necessarily in a bad way) little book about a cat who goes to a cat school while her owner is on vacation and gets bullied by another, bigger cat. ( )

The School for Cats by Esther Averill is one of the Jenny's Cat Club books. I've been trying to read the series on and off since reading The Hotel Cat. The stories seem to be at all different reading levels and they've gone out of print and come back into print, making them all the more difficult to sort out and read.

In this one, Jenny, the adorable black cat with the fetching red scarf, is heading to cat school for the summer. The set up reminds me of the times I've taken Caligula cat to "cat camp" for boarding while I visited my family. In Averill's world, though, cats are self sufficient enough to get there on their own. Pickles, the fire cat, for example, drives his miniature fire engine to the school!

Pickles's over abundance of energy and Jenny's natural timidity makes for a volatile combination. Poor Jenny ends up with the scare of her life but she learns from her experience and grows in the process. While Jenny runs off, I couldn't help but be reminded of Jane, the youngest of the Ursula Le Guin Catwings cats, especially in Jane on Her Own. Jenny, though, I like better. ( )

Sent to a School for Cats in the country while Captain Tinker is away, shy Jenny Linsky is at first terrified by the antics of Pickles the Fire Cat, who chases her up a chimney. But a night as a runaway in the forest, and the arrival of some new cats, give her the courage to stand up for herself.

This very brief book, suitable for younger chapter-book readers, presents another engaging story of the Greenwich Village cat and her group of friends. The appearance of Pickles - one of my favorite childhood storybook characters - would be enough to win my approval, but The School for Cats has an appeal all of its own.

Averill, whose adorable illustrations accompany the story, keeps scrupulously to the feline perspective, but the observant reader will perceive that Jenny's "school" is a boarding house for pets, and will be charmed by the reminder of how differently things must appear to animals. ( )

A heartwarming, adorable book that many children will identify with: separation from familiar people and places to go to school where there might be bullies along with potential friends. Quaint drawings give Jenny and the other cats even more personality, introducing a cast of characters children will love. No surprise why this book is a classic and has inspired many sequels! ( )