Kaspar the Titanic Cat, written by Michael Morugo and illustrated by Michael Foreman, 200 pp, RL 4
Having been a children's bookseller for almost seventeen years now and a parent for a couple of years longer, I have seen many children, including my own, express a fascination with the story of the Titanic. Like other seemingly frightening and/or dangerous things that small children are fascinated with (sharks, dinosaurs, bugs) they grasp the literal enormity of the thing but don't yet grasp the emotional enormity of that which they are drawn to. Kids can't really fathom what it must be like to be hunted by a T-rex or a shark, nor do they grasp the tragedy and needless loss of life that resulted from the hubris of the builders of the "ship that couldn't sink." Kaspar the Titanic Cat was difficult for me to read and I had to put it down more than once, but I know that how I read this book and how a child reads it are different. In fact, I had the good fortune to speak with a second grader who had just finished reading this book and I asked her if it made her sad at all. A head shake "no" was the answer, and rightly so, I suppose. However, in his newest book, Michael Morpugo, author of War Horse, finds a way to portray the suffering and loss of life that was part of this disaster, weaving an uplifting story around it. Michael Foreman's illustrations are realistic but softened with and even sometimes playful and add a valuable dimension to the story of Kaspar the Titanic Cat.


How Johnny and Kaspar end up on the ship and how they spend the five days before she sinks are intersting. In the chapter titled, "Women and Children First," Morpugo tells the story of how Johnny first learns of the breach in the ship and how he alerts the Stantons, who had no idea he was on the ship. As he and Mr Stanton see Lizziebeth and her mother safely onto a lifeboat, Johnny knows he must return to their room and rescue Kaspar, whom Mr Stanton insisted be left behind. The next chapter, "Good Luck and God Bless You," tells the harrowing story of the sinking of the great ship and how Mr Stanton and Johnny fare as well and how others die. One of the most painful parts to read finds Mr Stanton and Johnny clinging to a canvas lifeboat in the freezing sea. Of reaching and being pulled onto the boat Johnny says,
Only then did I really begin to take in the horrors of the tragedy I had been living through. The shrieks and the cries of the drowning were all around me. I caught my last sight of the great Titanic, her stern almost vertical, slipping into the sea. When she was gone, we were left only with the debris of this dreadful disaster strewn all around the ocean and those terrible cries that went on and on. And there were swimmers in the sea all around us, every one of them, it seemed heading our way. Very soon we were swamped with them, and we were turning them away, yelling at any other who came near that there was no room. And that was true, horribly true.
When he has to turn away a swimmer, a man he knew, Johnny says, "I will carry to the grave the guilt of what I did to that man and to many others."
Although the sinking of the ship makes up only two of the ten chapters in the book - there is a final chapter where we learn the fates of the Stantons, Johnny and Kaspar that is very rewarding - they made an impact on me as a reader. What the target audience, presumably 8 - 12 year olds, make of it, I am curious to know. In this year that marks the 100th anniversary of the sinking, Kaspar the Titanic Cat is a story that focuses on the individuals, who, while fictional are representative of the various classes and cultures that were on the Titanic, and gives a human side to the story that might help younger readers begin to grasp the full weight of this maritime disaster. By adding a sleek black cat to draw you in to the story, Morpugo brilliantly finds a way to reach a larger audience and encouraging empathy from readers who might just be discovering this human quality.
The Real Savoy Hotel and the real (statue) of Kaspar.
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