Happy Birthday the Cat

Birthday is a lovely calico cat, and the artfully staged photos show her growth and development from kittenhood to adult. Her purrsonal stories are enjoyable, but not altogether essential to the pleasures of perusing the book.

Birthday's origin was all-too-common - one of a litter born to a stray cat. Kind-hearted villagers put the litter in a basket in the window of a closed store, and the co-authors rescued the tiny last kitten on Noriko Carroll's birthday - hence the name. Like proud parents everywhere, the couple photographed Birthday continuously as she grew into a stunning calico girl. The resemblance ends there, however. This particular couple are both professional photographers, and they have created stunningly staged pictures that far surpass the normal candid shots that you or I would take. The stories told from the point of view of Birthday add a fun element to what would stand alone as a superb picture book.