`Cat Up a Tree’ a fine feline story for kids

CAT UP A TREE, by John and Ann Hassett, Houghton Mifflin Co., Boston, 1998, 30 pages, hardcover, $15.

If you’re a primary grade teacher or the parent of a beginning reader, I have a real find for you. John and Ann Hassett’s “Cat Up a Tree” combines a plot and illustrations that will tickle the funny bone of adult and child with a cadence and repeating pattern that will empower the young reader. Math skills are also enhanced. In the classroom or the home you can’t go wrong with this lively book.

Do you ever get the runaround? You have a problem that has to be solved. You call agency after agency. Everyone you talk to is sympathetic, but no one can help.

If so, you will certainly relate to Nana Quimby’s predicament. Seeing a cat stuck up a tree, she calls the firehouse only to be told that they no longer catch cats up trees. She can call if the cat starts playing with matches. When she looks out the window again there are five cats in the tree. But the police won’t come unless the cats rob a bank. As the tree’s feline population rises, Nana Quimby seeks help in vain from the pet shop, the zoo, the post office, the library, and city hall. Finally she takes matters into her own capable hands and, in a surprise ending that should leave adult readers chuckling with glee, turns the table on city hall when they call seeking help with a mouse infestation.

The illustrations are as delightful as the text. Children will find the spirited watercolor cats irresistible. My Amber, 9, responded by creating her own 52-cat masterpiece. I adore Nana Quimby’s expressive face and body language. It’s not surprising that she was portrayed in such loving detail. John was painting his own grandmother.

Ann taught first grade before becoming a reading recovery instructor. And it shows. All elements of “Cat Up a Tree” enhance a child’s early literacy experience. Nana Quimby’s quest for help is described in confidence-building, patterned, predictable verses. The pictures create a clue-filled context. And the humor that shines through the text and illustrations will beguile the most reluctant reader. Teachers who swear by “Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See?” will find “Cat Up a Tree” a priceless addition to their classroom libraries.

And as if that was not enough, “Cat Up a Tree” can also be used in the math curriculum. It is one of the few picture books that combine solid numeracy experience with an appealing story line. It can really make the concept of counting by fives come alive.

You don’t have to be a teacher to make good use of this book. I asked my Katie, 6 1/2, to read it to me last night and was thrilled with the way she was able to go beyond sounding out to achieve real fluency and expression. A child not ready to go solo will have a fine time reading together with Mom or Dad.

John said that the inspiration for the story came from two sources. He remembered an incident when a cat was rescued from a tree in his childhood neighborhood. And more recently he heard of a woman calling a fire station to report a feline in a similar predicament only to be asked if she had ever seen a cat skeleton in a tree. “They probably don’t respond these days to calls about a cat up a tree,” he commented wistfully.

John has found that being the father of two girls has profoundly influenced his writing. “It’s not so much that you’re getting ideas by watching them. It’s that having kids lets you stay tuned to being a kid.”

Animals play a prominent part in a number of Hassett picture books. John said his daughters are animal lovers and collectors. In the past their menagerie has included a cow and a pig. “Right now they have three goats, 40-something chickens, a guinea pig, two dogs, and whatever else may be around.”

John said that a new Hassett book is due to hit the bookstores next spring or fall. I certainly hope so. With Katie in hot pursuit of functional literacy and brother Adam, 2 1/2, striving valiently to catch up — right now he’s working on the alphabet — I expect great things from this talented husband-wife writing team.