Cats

Written By Gail Gibbons

While editing my reading response journals, I felt as though I had to re-write my journal response to the information book Cats, written by Gail Gibbons. I felt as though I had written the journal response in a more educational manner as opposed to a more reflective, personal manner. As I prepared to write another journal response, I felt as though some main points were valuable and so should be included in a revised edit of the first journal response. These important points included:

• Cats is an effective information book for readers because the content is accurate and true to the subject area.
• The reader is offered a vast array of information pertaining to the history, characteristics and care of cats and kittens, thereby broadening their horizons on a familiar topic.
• The book fosters a reader's development of critical thinking and reading skills. A combination of short and long sentences are used to create a sense of steady flow when reading. Also, the diction used is quite simple so that readers are not over-complicated by the vast array of information provided.
• The illustrations are accurate and enrich the text by providing a visual image relating to the information provided in any particular section. The illustrations are not incredibly vibrant nor completely dull but contain recurring colors of green, brown, some red and blue- mainly neutral colors. Because Cats is not an exciting story, a suspenseful mystery or an imaginative creation, the neutrality of the illustrations connect and unify the informative text.
• Most important of all, Cats is an enjoyable read.

I sat down to re-read the informational book Cats and about half-way through, I had to stop reading. When I reflected originally on Cats, I had talked about how the book made me think of my own three cats and how much I loved them. Unfortunately, between the time that I wrote my first journal response and then my second journal response, my cat Meeko went missing. Meeko was twelve years old; a very old cat. Even though it is painful to think about, I believe that Meeko knew his time was short and so he left to pass away. After a sad moment, I convinced myself to continue writing my journal response, in specifically responding to the section entitled "Caring For Your Cat." I immediately thought of how I had adopted Meeko and his sister Miyou when they were ten years old. I remember Miyou's big green eyes and how she was scared all the time. It took lots of love, care and patience to gain her trust and in time she became a very contented, very loving old cat. Meeko was not very affectionate at all and appeared quite small for his age. With lots of love and care and a huge dent in our cat food budget, Meeko became the very definition of a lazy, cuddly lap cat. He was fat, but healthy. As I read further on in the book, I felt such a pure sense of happiness and pride because I knew I had essentially saved my cats and given them a good, happy home. I realized that no matter how sad I was over losing Meeko, I was happy too because I alone had made him into a happy and healthy cat who could have no better. Reading the section on "Caring For Your Kitten" made me smile as I remembered bringing home my kitten, Monster. Reading the book Cats was made meaningful and engaging to me as I reflected on my role as a good pet owner- and most importantly, made peace with the absence of Meeko in my life.