Old Possum's Book of Practical Cats: with illustrations by Rebecca Ashdown: 1 (Faber Children's Classics)

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You can change your choices at any time by visiting Cookie preferences, as described in the Cookie notice. Join the Poetry Book Society today for a full year of poetry parcels containing the very best new poetry books and our poetry magazine, the PBS Bulletin. A number of the names and rhymes were culturally familiar for me even though I’d not read it before. Home to William Golding, Sylvia Plath, Kazuo Ishiguro, Sally Rooney, Tsitsi Dangarembga, Max Porter, Ingrid Persaud, Anna Burns and Rachel Cusk, among many others, Faber is proud to publish some of the greatest novelists from the early twentieth century to today.

She grew up by the sea, on the south coast of England, spending most of her childhood reading, writing, drawing and running wild. The choice of words and the feelings you get after reading every poem about different types of cats was a pure joy! Scheffler has produced a marvellous edition, fit to stand alongside the previous illustrated editions of the whole book, and it even compares favourably to the darker-hued Erol LeCain illustrations for five of the poems.

It always raises a smile when I finally get to read something that has had so much influence and been referenced so many times and yet I had NOT a clue about it.

I have craved world building, esoteric codes, political machinations, something to offset the Bob Corkers of my mind. At about the same time another English composer, Humphrey Searle, composed another narrated piece based on the poems, using flute, piccolo, cello and guitar.

This version invariably has me singing along to the rhyme on the pastel coloured dust-jacket of this gorgeous hardcover copy, every time I pick it up:🐈 ‘Jellicle Cats come out to-night‘Jellicle Cats come one come all:The Jellicle Moon is shining bright ~Jellicles come to the Jellicle Ball. Featuring Macavity, the Mystery Cat; Mr Mistofelees, the Original Conjuring Cat; Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer and all the gang, this is a must for every child’s bookshelf and is a great companion to the Andrew Lloyd Webber stage show. Featuring Macavity, the Mystery Cat; Mr Mistofelees, the Original Conjuring Cat; Mungojerrie and Rumpelteazer and all the gang, this is a must for every child's bookshelf and is a great companion to the Andrew Lloyd Webber stage show. My favourite poem was the one on Macavity which was fun to read aloud and create some good rhythm to it.It is a shame if grown-up readers aren't taken by the illustrations, but grown-ups can appreciate picture book treatments of old classics as well as the next child. Scheffler's illustrations are kid-friendly but yet they don't condescend or become overly cute and childish. I am reminded of Fernando Pessoa's comment that within each of us, there are many voices, a community of spirits as it were.