This enchanting tale of the very old man who sent off in search of one kitten and returned with "hundreds of cats, thousands of cats, millions and billions and trillions of cats" is an American classic as well as a Newbery Honor Book.

This Newberry Honor Book is a must-read for animal lovers out there. Written in 1928, this adorable story tells of a lonely old couple who lived in the country and decided they needed a cat to quell their loneliness. The old man "climbed over the sunny hills" and "trudged through the cool valleys" in search of the most beautiful cat to take home to his wife. The simple cartoon pictures are black ink against all-white backgrounds, encouraging readers to imagine their own color scheme. The older style font and occasional word hyphenated between lines makes this a book better for reading to your little one, rather than a beginning reader book. One of the repeating lines in the book, "millions and billions and trillions of cats," is a fun line to say together once your little one learns when it's coming, and the picture of a hillside literally covered by cats provides an good visual of just how large of a number 'million' is.

The story is written in a way that you can take different lessons from it, depending on how you want to interpret it. For instance, even though the old man is very sweet, you could say he demonstrated greed by taking home all of the cats because he was unable to choose just one. That decision resulted in his wife being overwhelmed, and all of the cats fighting with one another to be noticed. Another possible lesson includes the dangers of vanity; when the old man asked the cats to decide amongst themselves which was the prettiest, they all insisted they were. The cats quickly ended up quarreling and ultimately swallowed one another up. The third lesson, which goes hand-in-hand with the 'vanity' lesson, is the benefits of modesty. The one cat who didn't insist she was the prettiest was the only one left unharmed, and ultimately was adopted by the old couple. Once they brushed and fed the homely cat, it began to look more and more beautiful.

I read this book with my niece, Emily, when she was four years old. Her family has two small dogs, but she is also a big fan of cats. Her eyes widened and she shrieked with excitement when she saw the page depicting a whole hillside covered in cats, "Oh! Are there really wild cats in the hills?!" Emily also wanted to pause on each page and examine the cats and to point out which one she felt was prettiest. Overall, the book certainly made an impression on Emily, as I saw 'kitty' on her birthday wish list.

--Audra

Wanda Gg (1893-1946) was born in New Ulm, Minnesota, the daughter of an artist and the eldest of seven children. In recognition of her rare artistry, she was the posthumous recipient of the 1958 Lewis Carroll Shelf Award for "Millions of Cats" and the 1977 Kerlan Award for the body of her work.