The delightful adventures of a visually impaired barn cat and his
annoying flea, as they set off to experience the world and find
themselves participants in some of the most remarkable events of the
early twentieth century.
Pudding Tat is born on the Willoughby Farm in 1901 -- just another one
of Mother Tat's kittens. But it turns out that Pudding is anything but
ordinary. He is pure white with pink eyes that, though beautiful, do not
see well, and hearing that is unusually acute. He finds himself drawn to
the sweet sounds of the world around him -- the pattering heartbeat of a
nearby mouse, the musical tinkling of a distant stream.
Soon the sounds of adventure call to Pudding, too. But before he can
strike out into the wide world on his own, he hears a voice -- coming
from right inside his own ear. A flea has claimed Pudding as his host.
The bossy parasite demands that Pudding take him away from the lowly
barn and the drunken singing of his fellow fleas. He doesn't want
adventure but a finer life -- one where he can enjoy a warm bed and
blood flavored not with mice, but with beef tenderloin and cream.
Fortunately for this mismatched pair, the world is an extremely
interesting place in 1901. Over the next decade and a half, Pudding and
his flea find themselves helping to make history -- a journey over
Niagara Falls in a barrel, a visit to the Pan-American Exposition on the
day President McKinley is shot, a luxurious stay in Manhattan with
songwriter Vincent Bryan, a terrifying trip on the airship America,
and a voyage on the ill-fated Titanic.
Through each narrow escape, the call to adventure for the cat, and
luxury for his disgruntled flea, beckons them on, right to the
devastation of a World War I battlefield. Then Pudding is filled with a
new longing, one that brings him, with his flea's help now, full circle
and back home.
Correlates to the Common Core State Standards in English Language
Arts:
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.4.3
Describe in depth a character, setting, or event in a story or drama,
drawing on specific details in the text (e.g., a character's thoughts,
words, or actions).
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.2
Determine a theme of a story, drama, or poem from details in the text,
including how characters in a story or drama respond to challenges or
how the speaker in a poem reflects upon a topic; summarize the text.
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.5.7
Analyze how visual and multimedia elements contribute to the meaning,
tone, or beauty of a text (e.g., graphic novel, multimedia presentation
of fiction, folktale, myth, poem).
CCSS.ELA-LITERACY.RL.6.3
Describe how a particular story's or drama's plot unfolds in a series of
episodes as well as how the characters respond or change as the plot
moves toward a resolution.
