Lola’s New Favorite: Jenny and the Cat Club!

I’m thrilled to have a child in the Jenny and the Cat Club stage again! These were Luke’s favorites, and now Lola is devouring them.

Books that help transition kids from early readers to chapter books are hard to find—especially quality transition books—but these books by Esther Averill are the best of the best.

Meet Jenny and her Cat Club:

Jenny Linsky is a small black orphan cat. She lives with the kind Captain Tinker, who knitted her a red woolen scarf. When she is too shy to join the Cat Club, in which each cat has a clever skill, Captain Tinker makes her a pair of silver ice skates and gives them to her on Christmas Eve. When all the other cats see her skating, they are enchanted and invite her to be a member of the Cat Club.

Jenny and the Cat Club is a selection of shorter stories: The Cat Club, Jenny’s First Party, When Jenny Lost Her Scarf, Jenny’s Adopted Brothers, and How the Brothers Joined the Cat Club. Each two-page spread has at least one small illustration, and the pictures are darling. Each cat has oodles of personality. The tender and quirky stories are accessible for young children, but they are beautifully written and full of wonderful vocabulary.

In the second story, Jenny’s First Party, readers meet Pickles, the Fire Cat. If younger readers have the good fortune to read The Fire Cat by Averill when they are in the early readers stage, they will be delighted to meet Pickles again in The Cat Club. Lola was so excited to see Pickles that she went back to The Fire Cat and discovered that Jenny appeared in a picture in that book as well!

The Cat Club was originally published in 1944, and it is still charming readers today! The New York Review Children’s Collection hardback books are lovely. Check out The Hotel Cat, The School for Cats, Jenny’s Moonlight Adventure, Jenny Goes to Sea, and Captains of the City Streets also in the collection.

We seemed to have missed adding Jenny’s Birthday Book to our collection, so I can’t wait to give it to Lola on her next birthday.

Jenny should be on every child’s bookshelf!