Magnificat by Marilyn Edwards

Magnificat by Marilyn Edwards
Buy Magnificat by Marilyn Edwards at Amazon.co.uk or Amazon.com
Category: Confident Readers
Reviewer: Louise Jones
Summary: A heartwarming tale of the tentative relationship between a boy and his cat.
Buy? Yes	Borrow? Yes
Pages: 272	Date: June 2013
Publisher: Catnip
External links: Author's website
ISBN: 9781846471476
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Ben is most definitely a dog person. He would love his own pet dog, but mum keeps refusing. He has the next best thing, an online cyberdog called Shadow, but what he really wants is a living, breathing, loyal canine companion to call his own. His best friend has a dog. Why can’t he? It seems like it is never the right time to approach mum about it, as she is always tired, teary and depressed since dad left.

Cat has problems of her own. Her cosy life was shattered when a strange vehicle she was exploring drove away with her inside it. Now she is alone and hungry in a strange town full of hostile humans.

When boy and cat meet, they feel something electric pass between them. But can a little stray cat really melt the heart of a boy who desperately wants a dog?

Magnificat is a beautifully touching story about relationships. All of the relationships in the story are fascinating and well written. Firstly, we have the awkward relationship between Ben and his recently divorced mum, which is a stark contrast to the cosy home life of his best friend Josh and his twin sister Chloe who have a loveable, lumbering Labrador called Clueless. The most important relationship in the book, though, is the one between the boy and the cat, which grows and develops as the story progresses. It is clear that the boy and the cat share a special, symbiotic bond, but neither of them seems to realise it before it is too late.

Marilyn Edwards clearly understands the relationship between humans and cats and the way she writes the scenes between the boy and his cat is wonderfully done. Cat owners will instantly relate to the affection shared between the cat and her boy. Every movement, every gentle prrrp, transforms Magnificat from a simple collection of words on a page into a living, tangible creature that the reader could almost reach into the book and touch.

The text is further enhanced by realistic illustrations from France Bauduin. The simple pencil drawings seem to capture the emotion of each scene perfectly and the kitten pictures are gorgeous.

A slight word of warning to more sensitive readers: some of the scenes in the book are quite distressing, especially the sections depicting hunting and a harrowing scene where a cat eats a stillborn kitten. It is up to parents to gauge how their children will react to this sort of content.

Cat lovers simply MUST read Dewey's Nine Lives: The Legacy of the Small-town Library Cat Who Inspired Millions by Vicki Myron and Brett Witter, a collection of short stories about some very special cats.

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