The Meerkat Wars is an interesting tale of a ordinary house cat vacationing with its owners who come across some odd animals that kind of remind him of normal house cats in some way and totally not in others.  The ideas of these similarities and difference starts the great conversations that will eventually prepare this simple house cat for the wild terrain in Africa and the lives that there meerkats live.

My favorite part of H.S. Toshack’s writing style is that he took the time to ensure that the manner in which the story is written is though and accurate but yet also not written too dumbed down.  This is a personal pet peeve of mine and I was thrilled to find that H.S. Toshack took to the time to write the story in this fashion.  It is evident that a lot of research hours went into the writing of this story.  I for one was not sure what a Meerkat even was before starting this book and now I know more than I every thought that I would.  This book was very educational without being overly textbookie.

I found when I left this book laying on the dining room table one evening that it mysteriously disappeared.  Now while it would not surprise me to find my ten year old, who is an avid reader sitting on his bed reading it, I was very surprised when it was my eleven year old who had picked it up to read.  This is the child that will find anything possible to but read because it is difficult for him.  This is was what he had to say:  I really liked the there was not only words but some nice pictures to go along with it.  I was able to picture what the cat and meerkats were doing and what they might look like.  It has some tough topics like getting hurt and dying but I thought that it was cool that the cat was willing to help to trying to bring all the meerkats together.  I don’t know if most animals would do that.  I think that this is a book that some of my friends might like. This is a pretty high compliment coming from a kid who really struggles to make it though the simplest of books.  You can purchase The Meerkat Wars through Amazon.

Lisa

www.lisasworldofbooks.net/