To Be A Cat

‘irresistible’
Amanda Craig, The Times

‘very funny and surprising’
John Boyne, author of The Boy in the Striped Pyjamas

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TO BE A CAT is my third children’s book. Here’s the blurb from the back cover:

An eerie, funny, magical dahl-esque fairytale – winner of the Gold Smarties Prize and the Blue Peter Award, and shortlisted for the Carnegie Medal and the Waterstone’s Prize.

Barney Willow thinks life couldn’t get any worse. He’s weedy, with sticky-out ears. Horrible Gavin Needle loves tormenting him – Barney has no idea why. And headteacher-from-hell Miss Whipmire seems determined to make every second of Barney’s existence a complete misery! Worst of all, Dad has been missing for almost a year, and there’s no sign of him ever coming home.

Barney just wants to escape. To find another life… Being a cat, for example. A quiet, lazy cat. Things would be so much easier – right?

Barney’s about to discover just how wrong he is. Because he’s about to wake up as a cat – and not just any cat. Gavin Needle’s cat…


The illustrations are by the wonderful Pete Williamson.

Read the first few pages here.