HarperCollins Children's Books Mog the Forgetful Cat

Amazing book for the kids. My daughter and niece made me read this story 4 times for them, with ever increasing curiosity. Mog is a an adorable, not so bright cat whose forgetfulness is rather cute. Will buy more Mogs in the coming weeks for the kids. Well, not just the kids, even I loved Mog.

We initially bought the board book version of Mog for my daughter when she was 10 months old. Over a year on, and it is still incredibly popular with her - I imagine it will be for a long time to come. The illustrations are iconic for a reason - they’re really lovely. Despite being set in the seventies (when the book was first published) the characters and images haven’t aged badly - the only notable differences for me were Mr Thomas’ boxy TV and a little girl being called Debbie! The writing is brilliant - it’s a great story and it’s really dry and funny in its execution. It’s very fun to read as an adult. I’m sure my daughter will appreciate the humour as she gets older. It’s written in such a way that there are loads of opportunities to ask questions about what’s going on and as your child gets a bit older, to probe for skills around inference (I.E. why do you think Mrs Thomas was angry?). In my ex-teacher days, this book was a popular choice in the classroom for this very reason. It’s a really multilayered book with appealing components for a broad age range. It is slightly on the longer side, so my daughter did initially struggle to listen to the whole thing, but this quickly changed. The board book quality is really excellent as well - the cover is cushioned, meaning it hasn’t been damaged at all from inevitable chewing by my little one, unlike some other board books. One thing that I have commented on with my husband - though this is more a reflection of children’s stories in general - it’s a shame that one of the few books with a female protagonist (especially for the era it was written in) is more than a little ‘slow’. Why must one of the few female leads from a large collection of children’s books be stupid? Stupid or mum - that seems to have been the choice for a while. If you’re very sensitive to this sort of thing, this might not be for you. I don’t think it’s a dealbreaker, as there are fortunately lots of more modern books showing positive female leads, which we use as a balance - but it might be something to bear in mind.

Absolutely wonderful story. Everyone needs to read this perhaps especially the catless among us

Such lovely pictures and an engaging story for young and old alike.

The story is really nice and the drawings just lovely. If you're buying it for a non-native e English child, though, I'd recommend thinking of something simpler as it requires a good language understanding. Apart from this, it's really enjoyable and sweet.