Bad Bad Cats

by Roger McGough LUO JIE MAI GE FU, Lydia Monks (Illustrator)

A brilliant new collection of poems. The poetry contains the clever word-play, rich ideas and humour associated with Roger McGough. It includes a series of poems about the exploits of some gangster cats and verse based on CARNIVAL OF THE ANIMALS by Saint Saens.

Genres: Poetry

96 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1997

Reviews

[Nat K · Rating 3 out of 5]

”Midnight. A knock on the door. Open it? Better had.
Three heavy cats, mean and bad. They offer protection.

I ask, ‘What for?’

The Boss-cat snarls, ‘You know the score…’ ”
- The Cat’s Protection League 🐱

A nice easy read for a hot, summer evening.

I’ve always admired Roger McGough’s take on things. His poems range from humorous (”Cats Protection League”), to serious (”Aquarium”) without being dismal.

This is a short collection of poems of various lengths, mainly centred around our animal friends (specifically cats). Though there are plenty of other quirky poems contained here.

I think poetry such as this is a good way to get littlies interested in reading. They’re short, don’t require a long attention span, and they’re FUN.

Accompanied with cute illustrations by Lydia Monks, this is a book to be enjoyed and read out loud!

”I have a busy diary:
Lunches, gallery openings,
Fashion shows, plays.

It’s always off somewhere.
In fact, I haven’t seen
My diary for days."
- Busy Diary 📖

[Luke Kondor · Rating 5 out of 5]

It was nice to revisit one of the books I grew up reading as a kid. Roger McGough was the first author I ever met, back when I was like six or seven. And it's weird to see how much of this book is very much a part of who I am today.

There are funny poems about cat gangsters who kidnap, puns on every other page, general British silliness, but also a fair bit of bite.

[Jenika Ioffreda · Rating 2 out of 5]

I gave one extra star for the nice illustrations but I didn't enjoy much the poems. Some were nice and quite thought provoking like "Aquarium" (poem about a fish gloomily dreaming of the ocean faraway inside his cage-aquarium ) and "Fossils" (poem about how T-Rex and T-Regina weren't monsters, if you want to read about real ones you have to read "History of Mankind") but the majority left me either indifferent or I didn't understand them at all.

[Brendan]

Rating: 3 1/2

Poems and lists - mostly humorous. He seems to have had trouble deciding if his audience was children or adults. I was left wanting more of the gangster cat pieces. The "Carnival of the Animals" poems were forgettable. But I got some laughs out of this collection.

(Some cute illustrations by Lydia Monk.)


My favorites:

"Waxing Lyrical" - about polishing, and more polishing
"Busy Diary"
"Late-night News" - one of the few serious pieces
"The Pianists"

[Stefan Grieve · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is one of the first poetry books I remember reading as a child and I loved it. Not only with the titular 'bad cats,' but so many other great poems as well, my favorites were the inventive list poems.

[Mohammed Ahmed · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found it very amusing as it was filled with great poems by favourite being the one with the 3 cats.