Module 2: Millions of Cats

 Book Summary: When his wife sends him to pick out the perfect kitten to have as a pet, the man finds a hill with millions of cats. As he attempts to choose one, he decides that all of the kittens have merit and decides to take all of them home. Along the way, the cats devour all of the grass and water they come across. When he gets home, the wife tells him that there is no possible way they can keep all of the cats. The man decides to let the cats decide who is the one that will stay with the couple. After a scuffle, the couple goes outside to find only one cat left. He was ignored because the other cats did not think he was good enough to consider as competition so the left him alone. It turns out, even though he was not the cutest cat, he is the perfect cat for this family.  

APA Reference of Book: Gág, W. (1928). Millions of cats. New York: Coward-McCann, Inc..  

Impressions: The illustrations in this book are very simple and all in black and white. Because of this, I wasn't particularly blown away by the art. However, once I learned more about the history of the book and how it is considered the first modern picture book, I gained a better appreciation for it. Gag was the first children's illustrator to create images spanning two pages. This is something we take for granted now, but it is very remarkable that she wanted to treat her book like a true piece of art and thus expanded the realm of illustrating for children. The wide illustrations give the reader a feel for the overwhelming number of cats that have followed this man home since the line of cats continues across the binding and onto the next page. I did like the story a lot. I could definitely understand wanting to take home all the cats and Gag's way of writing has a beautiful, lyrical quality to it that encourages you to read the book aloud.

Professional Review:

Wanda Gág's Millions of Cat
Children's book review by Steve Barancik
Ages 4-8

A children's book about cats...millions of them!
Named by School Library Journal as one of the "One Hundred Books That Shaped the Century" (the previous century), Millions of Cats is a treasure. It is also one of the few picture books to win a Newbery Honor, and it is reckoned by some to be the oldest American picture book still in print!
It's a simple tale. The very old woman's husband sets out in search of the perfect cat for his wife. Then he comes across a hill "which was quite covered in cats."
Millions and billions and trillions of cats.

This poses a bit of a dilemma. The old man wants the prettiest cat for his wife, but the more he looks the harder it is to decide which is the prettiest.

So he invites them all to return home with him. Along the way they drain a pond and denude a hillside. Millions of cats can do a fair amount of ecological damage!

The very old woman is, naturally, a bit overwhelmed. She resolves to let the cats themselves decide which is the prettiest and therefore should stay with the old couple.

But it turns out that asking a bunch of cats which is the prettiest only leads to disagreement among the vain creatures. The old couple retreats into their house when quite the argument ensues.  When they re-emerge, not a single cat is in evidence. It seems they all ate each other!

But there, in the tall grass, they spot one scraggly, scrawny, frightened little kitten. When they ask him how he survived, he explains that he was the only one who didn't claim to be the prettiest...so all the other cats left him out of the fight!
And therein lies Wanda Gág's lesson for us all: vanity will get you nowhere...except ingested. Beauty is only skin-deep. The little kitten, of course, grows up to be the prettiest cat of all...though presumably if he knows that, he's learned to keep it to himself!

[Review of the book Millions of cats, by S. Barancik].  (2006).  Retrieved from http://www.best-childrens-books.com/millions-of-cats.html
Library Uses:This would be an excellent storytime book due to the chant-like phrase "Cats here, cats there, / Cats and kittens everywhere, / Hundreds of cats, / Thousands of cats, / Millions and billions and trillions of cats", that would be perfect for the children to repeat along with the reader.