Why am I passionate about this?
All the best books have a cat sidekick. Over and over, when people talk to me about my book, they pause in the middle of whatever they were about to say and go, “Oh my gosh, Biscuits,” and then launch into a list of things Biscuits the cat does, and how they are similar to things their cats have done, presumably up to and including throwing hands (paws?) with horrifying monsters that want to eat your heart. Biscuits is the latest in a long and proud tradition of literary feline companions, an essential element of many of my favorite and formative texts growing up.
Brita's book list on a cat sidekick who is secretly the main character
Why did Brita love this book?
Diana Wynne Jones understands fundamentally that cats rule and they are also little jerks. Throgmorten is a sacred cat from a temple in another world, which is a very cat lifestyle, and he spends the whole book spitting and scratching and biting people, which is the singularity of focus that I strive for in my life. Diana Wynne Jones is also not afraid to directly transcribe cat noises, by which I mean Throgmorten says “WONG” a lot, which is such an objectively weird way to describe a cat’s yowl until you actually hear a cat make that sound and realize, “Oh wow, yeah, it does sound like he’s saying ‘WONG.’” I’m not saying authors who exclusively say that cats “meow” are cowards, but. I’m not not saying that.
1 author picked The Lives of Christopher Chant as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it. This book is for kids age 8, 9, 10, and 11.
Glorious new rejacket of a Diana Wynne Jones favourite, exploring the childhood of Chrestmanci - now a book with extra bits!
Discovering that he has nine lives and is destined to be the next 'Chrestomanci' is not part of Christopher's plans for the future: he'd much rather play cricket and wander around his secret dream worlds. But he soon finds that destiny is difficult to avoid, and that having more than the usual number of lives is pretty inconvenient - especially when you lose them as easily as he does!
Then an evil smuggler, known only as The Wraith, threatens…