Children love the ridiculous. The first picture book to be a runner-up (Honor) book for the Newbery Award, Millions of Cats by Wanda Gág (published 1928), certainly meets the “ridiculousness” standards for a young child to giggle at. With silly but adorable plot, quaint black-and-white illustrations, and hand-formed text, the book still has eye-rolling childhood appeal even today, almost 100 years after its original publication.
In this picture book, an old man and an old woman feel very lonely, so the old man walks for a long time to find a cat to keep them company. But after he finds a field full with millions of cats, he cannot decide on which one to keep: they are simply all too cute. So, he brings them all back home with him. Of course, then the old man and woman are overwhelmed with the cats, so they hunker down inside, while the millions of cats fight it out and cannibalistically eat each other. Then, with just one cute cat left, the man and woman are satisfied and no longer lonely.
The cats cause all sorts of problems on the journey home: drinking all the water from a pond, eating all the grass. A common refrain appears a few times in the story:
Cats here, cats there,
Cats and kittens everywhere,
Hundreds of cats,
Thousands of cats,
Millions and billions and trillions of cats.
The cats talk to the man and woman when the people ask the cats to decide who is prettiest. In the end, the one cat who was humble enough to consider itself homely is the one that remains, for no one bothered it in the fighting and quarreling and apparent eating each other. So, the sweet “homely” kitten gets fattened up and turns out to be a most beautiful cat after all.
A mini-lesson? Possibly, but the book as a whole doesn’t quite prompt a lesson, given the ridiculous concept of millions of cats invading the countryside and ultimately eating other up. I can’t say that I love this book. In fact, it was a bit too ridiculous to me, and I’d put it in the “eh” category. But my 8-year old read it with me and she appreciated it. She wanted to keep reading and she seemed to chuckle in parts. A ringing endorsement? I’m not sure. But for a black-and-white picture book with such a plot, it’s impressive that it could keep a child’s attention. For that reason, I must recommend that you check out Millions of Cats to see it for yourself, or at least for the child in your life. It stands alone as a picture book from 1928 that stands out with its unique quirkiness.
You might be wondering why this was a runner-up for the Newbery and not the Caldecott. One simply reason: the Caldecott didn’t begin until 1938!
Millions of Cats was a Newbery runner-up (later redesignated as a Newbery Honor) in 1929. I rate it “REALLY GOOD” and say “KEEP IT AND READ IT.”
Newbery rating scale: FANTASTIC | REALLY GOOD | PRETTY GOOD | OKAY | BLAH
What to do with this Newbery: KEEP IT AND READ IT | MAYBE IF YOU HAVE TIME | DON’T BOTHER
