The School for Cats (Jenny's Cat Club)

by Esther Averill

Other authorsEsther Averill (Illustrator)

Hardcover, 2005

Status

Available

Call number

813.5

Publication

NYR Children's Collection (2005), Edition: Illustrated, 32 pages

Description

Captain Tinker sends Jenny Linsky off to boarding school for the summer, but when another student frightens her, she tries to run away.

User reviews

LibraryThing member michelleknudsen

I loved the Cat Club books when I was little, and The Fire Cat (starring Pickles, one of the Cat Club characters) remains one of my all-time favorite beginning readers ever. I happened across The School for Cats in the library and had to take it home; not sure if I read this one before, but I

probably did at some point. What’s interesting to me about these books is that the plot is almost irrelevant, at least as far as my enjoyment goes. This book is about Jenny going to cat school, being afraid and getting teased and running away and ultimately deciding to go back and face her assailant. It’s a decent enough storyline, but what makes the book irresistible are the characters and the overall tone of the writing. And the illustrations, which compliment the writing perfectly. Perhaps there’s a nostalgia factor at work, as well, but I think I would still love these books if I only first encountered them today.

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LibraryThing member debnance

Did you know there was once a Boarding School for Cats? If you were a cat, would you want to go there?

Some who went there were like Pickles, sent by his master to learn manners. Pickles who thrived at the boarding school by running over innocent cats with his hook-and-ladder truck.

Others were

sent there like Jenny. She was sent to the boarding school while her master was sailing at sea. Jenny wasn't so sure she wanted to go to boarding school. Especially after Pickles ran over her with his hook-and-ladder truck.

A 1001 CBYMRBYGU.

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LibraryThing member sschreur

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!

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LibraryThing member AbigailAdams26

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.

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LibraryThing member pussreboots

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.

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LibraryThing member electrascaife

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.

LibraryThing member ashleytylerjohn

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).

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