Titanicat

Titanicat
Written by: Marty Crisp
Illustrated by: Robert Papp
Sleeping Bear Press, 2008
40 pages
Historical Fiction

                Have you ever heard of a cat on a boat? Aren't most cats supposed to be afraid of water? Well this tortoiseshell lives on the ship 4-0-1 also later on called the titanic. Young John Mulholland is in charge of this cat that is named after the ships construction number 4-0-1. Find out if 4-0-1 and John actually go on the Titanic’s first voyage to America.
                 The illustrations in the story are very warm and soft looking. The baby kittens look like they could actually jump right off the page and onto your lap! Robert Papp does a great job at portraying the Irish heritage by giving John red hair and green eyes.  Papp’s illustrations really portray what the people and things actually look like in real life.
                I would first do a history lesson on this book and tell my students about the tragic story of how the titanic sank. I would also like to have my student’s do a reenactment type thing by having my students look up individuals on the ship and tell about them.  They could do a play and dress like them.  Then I would have my students write a narrative using the before-middle-end words to tell the sequence of what happened during the story.