Amazon.com Review
The strangest thing happened. The owner of a cat named Clio found a journal under an old couch--a diary that was clearly created by the clever feline herself, now in the joyous throes of her ninth life. The cat's owner knew this unusual historical document must be published! The journal, rough and enticing as a cave painting, begins in Mesopotamia, in 3000 B.C. "Alive! I yawn. I look around. I am in Mespotamia, the 'land between two rivers.' I see fields of wheat and rivers full of fish. I am getting hungry." That night, this valuable cat names the constellations! Life number two begins in China, in 1500 B.C., where Clio serves as the first sundial in the world--except when it's cloudy or when she's off chasing butterflies. She invents the alphabet in Rome in 600 B.C., and twists, flips, and travels through the year 1500, where she lives in Italy with Leonardo Da Vinci, eats cheese, and tests out his flying machine: "The experiment is a flop. But Oh! The views!" Life number nine begins in 1995, in Wisconsin, where nine kittens are born into
their first, hugely historic lives. Is any of this conjecture, however delightful, based in fact? An appended section in the back tackles the validity of Clio's journals and unearths some astonishing facts and fictions. For example, "It has been pointed out that if the alphabet wasn't invented until life number three, then how were lives number one and number two written?" Harumph. Marjorie Priceman--illustrator of Lloyd Moss's Caldecott Honor Book
Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin!--tickles our fancy again with her offbeat sense of humor and ever-artful style. A fun, tongue-in-cheek tribute to cats and their unquenchable sense of self-importance. (Ages 6 and older)
--Karin Snelson
From Publishers Weekly
Clio (aka Marjorie Priceman) purports to be a cat; this witty "journal" documents her accomplishments and many adventures in nine far-flung lives. Launching her reminiscences in Mesopotamia in 3000 B.C., Clio subsequently touches down in such exotic settings as ancient China and Leif Eriksson's sailing ship. She claims credit for naming the constellations and helping to invent the clock, the alphabet, the fork and the parachute?not to mention inspiring the Mona Lisa's smile. The wide-ranging diary entries give Priceman plenty of varied outlets for her punchy descriptions: of Chinese architecture, Clio observes that the house "wears a hat just like the people do"; jazz music in 1913 New Orleans has "that ultimate, sky-high, shimmy, shimmy, toe-tickling sound." Visually, the sepia-toned pages mimic well-seasoned parchment, with hand-lettered text scrawled as if by little paws. Cleverest of all are the visual nods to different eras?the free-flowing draftsmanship is unmistakably Priceman's, but she varies the trappings. The Mesopotamia sequence, for example, begins with hieratic panel art; the first picture of 1300 England incorporates the colors of stained glass and the compositional style of an illuminated manuscript. An afterword drolly "verifies" the journal's authenticity with the findings of a host of "experts," thus teaching readers some quick history lessons. This beguiling spoof is the cat's meow. All ages.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
