Gretchen Preston’s “Valley Cats” could be the fun and adventurous story of Boonie and River, two cats who first meet within a parade and quickly become close friends. Boonie is much more daring than River, who is banned to leave his yard, but soon Boonie convinces River the guy can get the trust of his mistress to enable them to have adventures.
Those adventures happen inside Valley where Boonie and River live, along with the surrounding areas of their Upper Michigan home. Author Gretchen Preston based the tale upon people and cats she knows in their own Michigan home, but readers from any location will relish reading these stories. Boonie and River are characters children will love-especially cat lovers. They are paying homage to characters in earlier friend books for children like the “Frog and Toad” series by Arnold Lobel, however the book is a lot more in-depth, with full-length chapters, each finding myself itself a separate story about one of many Valley Cats’ adventures.
The adventures include exploring the outdoors in the winter, visiting a cave at Broken Indian Rock along Lake Superior, along with a rainy day picnic, in addition to some bathroom antics when the Valley Cats are cooped indoors in winter. The stories are visual and also the reader will track the action without any trouble, yet the gorgeous illustrations by Karin Neumann produce an added dimension for the stories. These watercolor pencil drawings are vibrant colored to draw children, but adults will also be stunned by how perfectly Neumann captures not only the charm in the cats and also the story, nevertheless the shadows of trees around the snow, the evening sunset, and the humor and sadness-all the emotions and tone-of the story.
Besides simply as being a fun read, “Valley Cats” is definitely an educational experience for the children. One story encompasses the death of your family pet which can help children connect with and understand death. Other stories highlight the outside and browse much like educational field trips. Preston carries a glossary of terms on the book’s end for young readers, with such words as “fire circle,” “Ojibwa,” and “zucchini.” Children from about 2nd to 4th grade will most enjoy this book, but even older readers will love the humor along with the gentle tone with the stories.
Although I’m a grown-up, and I have no children, “Valley Cats” would have been a true pleasure for me to read. It not merely forced me to be laugh and smile and marvel over the stunning illustrations, nevertheless it brought back feelings of my own, personal childhood and fond memories of my personal favorite illustrated stories like “Where the Wild Things Are” by Maurice Sendak, as well as the “George and Martha” stories of James Marshall-the books that first made me want to read and ultimately led to my just as one author. I’ve undoubtedly children will find that “Valley Cats” could have the same magical effect upon them.
