Hero Cat
By Eileen Spinelli,
Illustrated by Jo Ellen McAllister Stammen
Five tiny kittens cry for their mama, as smoke begins to fill the building. But Mother Cat has left her cozy heap of kittens to go in search of food. Determined to save her babies, Mother Cat dashes into the burning building and follows the sounds of frightened mewing. In five daring acts, she saves the day—a true hero cat!
Based on a true story.
Looking for a safe place to have her kittens on a nasty March day, Mother Cat is shooed away everywhere. She is hissed at by an old Tom in a garage, then shooed out of a shed, and finally settles on some old rags in a cold, abandoned building, to give birth to five very individual kittens (a scene that’s not pictured in the handsome illustrations). When she has to leave them to find food, she returns to find the building on fire. She rescues four kittens, one after another, fighting the smoke and the flames. When she returns for the fifth, she cannot hear or smell him, but manages to stumble over him, bring him out, and collapse. Fortunately she and the kittens are brought together to safety by the firefighters. A visual narrative parallels the text, but is designed to generate much more emotion. The text “tells,” but the images show the overt actions while stirring our feelings. We are told that Mother Cat carries out her kittens, but seeing her emerge from the smoky haze with a kitten in her mouth compels us to feel her maternal devotion. We can admire the photograph of the real hero cat, Scarlet, after her ordeal that accompanies the author’s note. But it does not compare to the twice-life-size, almost touchable cat that grabs our attention across the front and back of the book. Young readers will be reassured by the story of a parent’s fiercely protective and unconditional love.
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