Bobbi and Bob Cat are the best of friends. When their hometown of New Orleans was struck by Hurricane Katrina, many lost everything. But not Bobbi and Bob Cat—they still had each other. Only by staying together could they survive. This is the story of their remarkable friendship.
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Book Description
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Editorial Reviews
From School Library Journal
Kindergarten-Grade 3—Simple prose introduces two animals, a cat and a dog, that survived Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans, and, after four months of wandering, were rescued by the Best Friends Animal Society. The narrative is obviously part supposition as the original owners were never found, despite efforts to locate them. Since both pets had bobbed tails, a shelter volunteer named them Bob Cat and Bobbi, hence the book's title. It was soon discovered that Bob Cat was blind, making his survival even more amazing and underscoring the idea that the two critters relied on one another during their ordeal. The terrifying event is told about in a matter-of-fact way, with the text concentrating on the "feel good" aspect of the two Bobbies. The gouache illustrations, done in soft pastel shades, present realistic glimpses of the devastated city that serve as a backdrop for the animals' struggles. An afterword includes a photo and additional information. An excellent introduction to Katrina for young children, this touching animal tale memorializes a modern catastrophe and pays tribute to the many volunteers who traveled to New Orleans to help.—Judith Constantinides, formerly at East Baton Rouge Parish Main Library, LA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
From Booklist
“Neither Bobbi the dog nor Bob Cat has a tail, and some say that’s what brought them together.” Abandoned during the Katrina evacuations, pets Bobbi and Bob Cat wander dangerous, debris-strewn streets seeking food and water. Eventually taken to a rescue shelter, the Bobbies show distress when separated but remain calm when together. Workers then discover that Bob Cat is blind and that Bobbi seems to serve as his seeing-eye dog. A national news appearance ultimately results in the animals' shared adoption in a happy new home. The descriptive, sometimes folksy prose and realistically rendered gouache illustrations accessibly convey the Bobbies’ experiences and mutual devotion. An afterword, with a photo of the real-life furry friends, notes the parts of the narrative that are speculative, such as the animals’ pre-shelter experiences.This moving story about the importance of friendship and home highlights the plight of the hurricane’s lost and left-behind animals, as well as the value of animal shelters. Grades K-3. --Shelle Rosenfeld
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
24 of 24 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
For pet lovers, it's a bit of a tear jerker!,
By
This review is from: Two Bobbies: A True Story of Hurricane Katrina, Friendship, and Survival (Hardcover)
I was looking for some books for my son and came upon the Two Bobbies purely by accident. I picked it up because I love animals and saw the mention of Hurricane Katrina. As I paged and read through the book, the tears ran down my face. It's a beautiful story and one that both children and parents will love.
My husband wondered what made it so emotional (as he gaped at me crying in the middle of the store!) and I said that it was really just a simple story of friendship that made it special. So many poor animals suffered from Hurricane Katrina. It was nice to read this special story.
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Animalia,
By
This review is from: Two Bobbies: A True Story of Hurricane Katrina, Friendship, and Survival (Hardcover)
Children's authors have commonly found that the only way to really write about a huge recent disaster for small tykes without irreparably scarring them for life is to find some kind of human-interest story to focus on. When 9/11 happened it was "The Man Who Walked Between the Towers" that ended up being the best picture book to make reference to the tragedy, and it didn't even talk about it all that much! Similar books like "Fireboat" and "September Roses" made their focus a boat and a delivery of flowers but somehow neither really twanged the heartstrings effectively. What's particularly interesting about these three books is that none of them involved animals in any way. Critters were few and far between around the Twin Towers that day. As a result, authors had to scramble especially hard to find something, ANYTHING, to that kids could relate to. Newbery Honor winning author Kirby Larson and her partner in crime Mary Nethery have it a little easier. Focusing on an animal interest story from the time of Hurricane Katrina, Larson and Nethery could have easily phoned in the tale of Bob Cat and Bobbi, but the story that emerges here is one of grace and delicacy. Steady hands present us with the story of this cat and dog team. It is an actually touching story, with none of the faux emotions or cloying techniques sometimes employed with lesser true-life dog/cat tales.
They were abandoned like many pets when their human owners evacuated New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. A dog with a bobbed tail and a cat, also with a bobbed tail, the two stayed close together in the time that followed. Fighting starvation and thirst, they walked the streets trying to find sustenance. A kind construction worker fed them, and in time the two were taken to a nearby shelter where they were named Bob Cat and Bobbi. To the surprise of the workers there the two did not want to be parted. Stranger still, it was determined that Bob Cat was completely blind. When no one adopted them their story was told on "Anderson Cooper's 360" and they found a new owner with a ranch and other dogs. There the two have stayed every since. A note at the back of the book includes a photograph of the real Bobbi and Bob Cat. There have been quite a few inter-species friendship stories that have fared well as children's books. "Koko's Kitten", the tale of a gorilla and her pet cats, was one of the earliest. More recently there was "Owen & Mzee", in which a baby hippo was "adopted", in a sense, by an old tortoise. These stories inevitably involve tragedy (dead kittens, dead mothers, etc.), making them ideal subject matter for the author's pen. So I admit to being a little surprised that only Larson and Nethery had the wherewithal, after seeing the "Anderson Cooper 360" piece, to realize that this was picture book heaven. Jeannette Winter must've been napping that day. Newbery Honor winning author or not, human interest stories done as picture books can still fall flat if their accompanying illustrator is less than great. I can just imagine the discussions surrounding what kind of illustrator would work on "Two Bobbies". Would they go with someone with a cartoony style? Someone who would, in a way, make the material younger and more small-child-appropriate? Or what if they found enough actual photographs of the real Bobbies and told the story that way? Grounding it in truth, if you will. Of course, the problem with that style is that Larson and Nethery begin their story long before any photographer thought to take a picture of the two pets. You'd have to make up for it in creative, questionable ways instead. The solution appeared to be somewhere between the two of these styles. Realistic illustrations would fill in many of the gaps in the Bobbies' past. Enter Jean Cassels, an illustrator prone to drawing more than sixty nonfiction nature titles. Best of all, Cassels is a New Orleans native, one who took her husband and her three dogs out of the city a mere day before Katrina hit. Cassels' style fits the story nicely. Once you hit the big reveal that Bob Cat has been blind all along, you can go back to the images and see that this makes a certain amount of sense. Pictures of Bob Cat show him placing one paw carefully in front of himself at all times, testing the ground in front of him. Other images of him show that he never looks at Bobbi. Not directly. Now there were times when I wondered about the factual leaps taken by the story. I suppose Cassels, Larson and Nethery felt inclined to draw some conclusions from this tale. For instance, they seem to believe that Bob Cat and Bobbi were together from the start. We don't actually know that they were owned by the same people at the beginning, but it's something that seems natural to assume, given how close the two were. A story of a dog befriending a blind cat in the midst of a hurricane is a whole different kettle of fish anyway. Cassels then draws the kind of house they might have lived in, which is sketchy territory. Other stretches of the imagination don't bother me as much. The pair being snapped at by other abandoned animals or their wait on the porch of their home while the water recedes, both leaps in logic sound about right. You have to make some basic assumptions if you want to render this a fully fleshed out tale. I just think great care must be taken when we render supposition to be fact, particularly when we're dealing with four-year-old audiences. Hurricane Katrina has lent itself to few changes in my library's children's collection. We've upped the number of hurricane books (and I suspect that the coming years guarantee that to be a sound investment) but those that actually discuss the hurricane itself are few and far between. How do you inform small children about government failure, loss of homes and lives, and general chaos? Cute animals can help, but only if their stories are real and (harder still) interesting. "Two Bobbies" hits all the right notes without falling too far into the realm of assumption and speculation. A great tale in general for cat people, dog people, and we-want-our-kids-to-read-great-books people.
17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Pawsitively Tender,
By
This review is from: Two Bobbies: A True Story of Hurricane Katrina, Friendship, and Survival (Hardcover)
Kirby Larson and Mary Nethery bring us a completely satisfying story of friendship that reaches across the canine-feline divide and lifts us two-legged critters to a higher plane of existence. We can only hope to achieve the same quality of love and compassion that comes so naturally to Bobbi and Bob Cat. The tale of these two survivors of Hurricane Katrina and its manmade aftermath will lay its paw print on your heart. It might even make you a better person.
I highly recommend this book for friends with and without fur. (I gave one to my friend, Jack the wonder dog, and he enjoyed it tremendously.)
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