Book Guide

Dave Mitchell is fourteen and growing up in the midst of the variety and excitement of New York City. In this quiet, reflective, and humorous story of a boy's journey toward adulthood, Emily Neville captures the flavor of one kind of New York boyhood—the sights and sound of Gramercy Park, Coney Island, the Fulton Fish Market, the Bronx Zoo, the stickball games played in city streets, the fascinating mixture of nationalities and eccentrics that give the huge metropolis so much of its flavor and excitement. But most of all the author tells a realistic tale of Dave's affection for a stray tomcat, his comradeship with a troubled nineteen-year-old boy, his first shy friendship with a girl, and his growing understanding of his father as a human being and not just a parent.

Emil Weiss's lively drawings capture the mood and setting of the story to perfection.

From the dust jacket

To view an example page please sign in.

Sign In




Not a member yet? Start your Free Trial

Emily Neville

Emily Neville

See more
Emil Weiss

Emil Weiss

1896 - 1965
Czech American
Emil Weiss has illustrated Paris, San Francisco, and Delhi in this series, and many other books for children. He is an especiall... See more

To view awards and booklists please sign in.

Sign In




Not a member yet? Start your Free Trial

Content Guide

Please sign in to access all of the topics associated with this book and view other books with the same topics.

Sign In




Not a member yet? Start your Free Trial

Please sign in to access the locations this book takes place in and view other books in the same location.

Sign In




Not a member yet? Start your Free Trial

Please sign in to access the time periods this book takes place in and view other books in the same time period.

Sign In




Not a member yet? Start your Free Trial

For information about the lead characters please sign in.

Sign In




Not a member yet? Start your Free Trial

Reviews

Plumfield and Paideia

It's Like This, Cat
Reviewed by Diane Pendergraft
“According to Neville’s Newbery acceptance speech, It’s Like This, Cat was originally a short story, and Nordstrom insisted it could be something more. So Neville worked and tugged and fussed and added, like a mother bear licking her cub into being (a reference to Michel de Montaigne Neville makes in her acceptance speech) and brought forth the episodic It’s Like This, Cat, which owes something to Salinger and something to Capote and a lot to the city of New York.” Describing Neville working and tugging and fussing a short story into a book actually explains a lot. It feels like it was fussed with and tugged out of something not meant to be more than it was to begin with. It’s as though Cheney cherry-picked episodes with nothing more in mind than proving she could illustrate realism.

Read the full review on Plumfield and Paideia