Neil Hopcroft

Warning: this book contains sadness, a lot of sadness. It is treated gently but that does not stop it being sad. There is also a lot of joy, with many memories of childhood friends and rekindling of relationships.

[Read aloud to Adelle] – The Travelling Cat Chronicles

This is a gentle story about a young man, Satoru, living in Tokyo who tries to find a new home for the stray cat he rescued, in doing so he visits a number of his old school friends and revives the friendships from his childhood but does not find an appropriate home for his cat, Nana.

The translation from the original Japanese is sensitive and picks up some of the nuance of society and etiquette there. The narration jumps between the view of the cat and an outsider describing the action – this was a little disconcerting to start with, and anthropomorphises Nana rather more than is really logical for a cat.

We are not told of the reasons for Satoru desire to rehome Nana until the final chapter of the book, where there is also a lot of other context about Satoru and his childhood, and how he came to be how he is. No spoilers – read the book.

There is a wonder to the changing of seasons and variety of countryside, travelling through Japan from the point of view of an ex-stray city cat. Nana especially likes the flowers in Hokkaido.

This is a work of fiction, unlike most of the travelling cat books we’ve read so far, which is a fact we were grateful for, given the harrowing conclusion of the story.