El Maullido de la Gata

by Gary Soto, Joe Cepeda (Illustrator)

Third-grader Graciela becomes convinced that her cat, Pip, is able to speak Spanish when he looks at his empty bowl and appears to say, "Quiero ma+a7s, Graciela," in a story that introduces basic Spanish words and phrases.

Genres: Childrens

82 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1987

About the author

Gary Soto is the author of eleven poetry collections for adults, most notably New and Selected Poems, a 1995 finalist for both the Los Angeles Times Book Award and the National Book Award. His poems have appeared in many literary magazines, including Ploughshares, Michigan Quarterly, Poetry International, and Poetry, which has honored him with the Bess Hokin Prize and the Levinson Award and by featuring him in the interview series Poets in Person. He has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the Guggenheim Foundation. For ITVS, he produced the film “The Pool Party,” which received the 1993 Andrew Carnegie Medal for Film Excellence. In 1997, because of his advocacy for reading, he was featured as NBC’s Person-of-the-Week. In 1999, he received the Literature Award from the Hispanic Heritage Foundation, the Author-Illustrator Civil Rights Award from the National Education Association, and the PEN Center West Book Award for Petty Crimes. He divides his time between Berkeley, California and his hometown of Fresno.

Reviews

[Nader Nate · Rating 2 out of 5]

i like the idea of talking cat and The story is somewhat amusing, but what I did not like was the strangeness in parents behavior of the main character , i really expected that the topic would not be ambiguous until the end. Also, what is the reason for the cat talking, which is the basic plot of the story, which was also not answered, and they sufficed with the fact that it is a secret between the cat’s owner and the cat.

[Carrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

A completely bonkers story. Bilingual kid books are a fun way for me to use my Spanish, and I love cats, so the two major themes of the book are right up my alley.

The truly bonkers-ness comes in with the parents’ behavior and the magical?/evil witch? neighbors. And there’s a lesson in there somewhere about not ruining good things by running your mouth about secrets because then they get ruined.

I don’t know if I’d recommend it for kids these days, but it tracks with the semi-disreputable, creative, and bizarrely questionable kids content from the 90s.

[Dionte]

haley one day the cat speaks spanis and the girl dd not now

[Abe · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked it a lot because of senor Medina's intellect. But the end is a little confusing.

[Emily · Rating 2 out of 5]

for multicultural lit 7/10/2007
a bit goofy

[Timothy]

LISTT ALL ESPANOL WORDS

[Mulhat]

I think this book is awesome.

[Ms. Campbell · Rating 3 out of 5]

Cute tale of a cat who speaks English. I always like bilingual books, and this was no different.

[Cailyn]

The Cat’s Meow, is a story about a little girl named Graciela a very special cat with the talent of speaking. This Cat of Graciela, most do not understand because Pip speaks Spanish.