The Bookshop Cat
Cindy Wume
Macmillan Children’s Books

In rising star Cindy Wume’s new book we meet a bibliophile black cat.

One day, while out exploring the city, said young moggy lands his dream job at the children’s bookshop thus acquiring his titular name too. He’s certainly an ideal assistant and before long proves himself both to his family who had despaired at his insistence on putting reading before achieving, and to the shop’s young customers for each of whom he manages to find just the right book.

Then one morning, disaster strikes: torrential rain causes the pipes to burst and a flood in the bookshop; outside is also under water. The result is that for several days nobody at all comes to the shop: both young Violet the owner’s grandaughter and the Bookshop Cat are thoroughly downcast.

Back at home, the Bookshop Cat’s family decide to pitch in and help. Happily Violet comes up with a wonderful idea:

if the children don’t come to the bookshop, the bookshop must go out to them. Indeed the entire city is transformed into a library and not only that, the workers find a way to get the customers back into the shop. Hurrah!

It’s an absolute delight with superb detailed illustrations; and what a wonderful demonstration of the power of reading, of books and bookshops, as well as an affirmation of the Bookshop Cat’s words early on in the story, “With a book, I can go anywhere and be anything.”