Millions of Cats Book by Wanda Gag

Bibliography
Gág, Wanda. Millions of Cats. New York: Coward-McCann, 1928. ISBN 0698200918


Plot Summary
Millions of Cats, is a story about an old couple that decide to find a cat to cure their loneliness.  The old man sets out to the hills in search for a cat.  But when the old man looks out across the land filled with millions of cats, he decides he must take them all home because he cannot decide which one is prettiest.  The old woman, however, realizing the inability of picking so many cats, decides that the cats might be better judges of their own prettiness than either she or her husband and decides that they pick amongst themselves the prettiest one. When the cats prove incapable of picking one cat, they eat each other up, until only the homeliest kitten is left. Surprisingly, it is this scraggly, ugly kitten that turns out to be the prettiest cat in the whole world in the eyes of the old couple, but only after it has been nursed back to health


Critical Analysis
The author did a great job in grabbing the reader's attention when using the rhyme: "Cats here, cats there, cats and kittens everywhere, hundreds of cats, thousands of cats, millions and billions and trillions of cats."  It was pretty clear that the cats were the main characters and the old woman and the old man are flat characters. 

My 7 year old daughter enjoyed this story even though it had black and white illustrations and it was written in 1928.  When I finished reading it she said," it does not matter what you look like."   This is true in that the prettiest, smartest, or wealthiest is not always the one that ends up being the best.  A wonderful lesson learned from reading this book. 


Review  Excerpts
~1929 NEWBERY MEDAL
~The New York Times: “A perennial favorite.”
~Wanda Gag posthumous recieved the 1958 Lewis Carroll Shelf Award for Millions of Cats and the 1977 Kerlan Award for the body of her work.

Connections
I would follow up with asking the following questions:
~Why did the old man have a hard time selecting a cat?
~Who gets to decide whether or not something is pretty?
~What qualities do you look for in a new pet?

Other cat book to read:
Litwin, Eric.  Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes. New York: Harper, 2010. ISBN 9780007584956