Lucy Maud and the Cavendish Cat

Huge grins. We all have our favorite things around here but one of my favorites, as any of my long-time readers know, is Lucy Maud Montgomery. I think her work is fabulous.

In the past year, I've grown to not only love her works, but things that remind me of her work. (Please do not read this to mean that I like any of the prequels to Anne written by people not of the name Montgomery.) I mean that I like stories about fairies and legends. I like to read books that I know Montgomery was inspired by. Things like that.

Someone, quite some time ago, let me know about Lucy Maud and the Cavendish Cat but somehow I had managed to forget about it! But now I cannot forget it as I have read it and have created a hallowed place on my "Anne" shelf (which is now really two shelves) for it to reside.

As any reader of Montgomery knows, Lucy Maud was awfully fond of cats. For everything that I like about Montgomery's works, I've never gotten the "cat thing." I'm more of a dog person myself. However, I will pardon this fascination and fixation with the felines because, well, there are a lot of things I'm willing to excuse about LMM.

Lucy Maud and the Cavendish Cat tells the story of Lucy Maud and her beloved cat, Daffy. The story was edited and woven together from Montgomery's Journals (Volumes I & II) and document her friendship, loyalty and devotion to her little gray cat.

Daffy became Maud's cat when she lived with her grandmother. This picture book tells about Daffy watching Maud create Anne of Green Gables and witnessing Maud's excitement when the book was accepted for publication. It talks about how Daffy was left behind on the Island after Maud was married and how he later joined Maud in her home in Ontario.

This book basically tells of the love affair that Lucy Maud Montgomery had with cats in a charming and endearing sort of way. (I can almost excuse the fact that she kept a tuft of Daffy's fur in her scrapbooks. If you want to see the fur, you can visit the Lucy Maud Montgomery Museum in New London, PEI. Oh yes, you can!) I love the illustrations in this book by Janet Wilson. They feel classic - which is how I picture LMM in my mind.

Adore this book! Thank you Tundra Books for not only publishing it, but for allowing me to read and love it for myself!