Catbook

Dear Richard

Congratulations on being selected for the professional critique. I was excited to see a story for children selected for the critique and I thought Catbook was an imaginative and interesting idea for a book for young readers. I think one of your strengths is in creating sympathetic and interesting characters – Thomas Cricket is a lovely character and one readers’ will immediately warm to. I also really like Napoleon the cat and Thomas’s dad – Leonard the fisherman/ lighthouse keeper – the latter is such an interesting and mysterious job!

Structure
You’ve chosen a really quite interesting structure here – using poetry at the beginning and during prose sections, which themselves are divided up into fairly short chapters. I’m in two minds about the poetry – in some ways I liked it and felt it perhaps added a nice lightness of tone and humour to the overall piece. However, in another way I felt that perhaps the prose story would work better and be a more coherent whole without the poetry. I don’t recall seeing any other stories framed in this way, which isn’t to say it’s a bad idea, but I think it might be something worth looking at again.
Once into the story itself the structure feels quite linear, which I think would work well for this fairly young age group. You draw the reader in from the outset of the prose although I wasn’t quite sure of the relevance of Catbook itself to the rest of the story – it warns Thomas that something odd is going on before Napoleon speaks to him, but other than that it doesn’t seem to have a major part to play in the story. Perhaps therefore it might not be the best title? I also think you need to be careful when you talk about the internet and social networking sites in a book for children (also perhaps take out the references to rum and nudity) and just be very aware both of the rules and regulations of certain sites and the importance of flagging up checking with parents etc.

Tone
I liked the overall tone of the piece – it seemed both realistic in terms of the relationships between characters (the brother-sister relationship in particular) and in the main upbeat and intriguing. This is a good beginning – there were so many questions which I think the reader will really want answered as the book progresses – particularly what adventures will Thomas go on with Napoleon.

Characterisation
Overall I thought this was good. I think your central character, Thomas Cricket, is nicely drawn and a sympathetic character – he seems like a typical little brother. The only point I wasn’t sure about with Thomas was how easily he seems to believe in Napoleon being a talking cat – wouldn’t you question yourself slightly more than he does? Perhaps that’s me looking at it from an adult perspective though! I also wondered whether Jemima was perhaps a little bit too stereotypical – thinking she’s cooler than her younger brother and rubbishing his ideas. I also wasn’t totally convinced that she’d be reading the Financial Times! I thought it would be nice if you could perhaps give us more of a description of the children – what they look like so readers can visualise them.
I also wondered whether you could maybe introduce some of Thomas’s school friends to the story – we hear that he’s been to school but don’t really hear much about it. I whether perhaps Thomas was more likely to confide in a friend than in his slightly scornful big sister? Even though the story will continue during Thomas’ summer holidays, if he’s confided in a friend they could be involved in the adventures.
I liked the description of Napoleon – he’s a great character. He’s tenacious and mysterious and I’m keen to know more about what he gets up to and who the other talking cats are and what they’re like. I think describing them and introducing them into the story would be fun.

Setting
As I mentioned earlier, I thought the setting was interesting and a little different – with the children living in a lighthouse and by the edge of the rocks as they do. I’d love to know more about the surroundings – eg. the cliffs of Saint Sandstone-on-Sea and to have a little more description of where Thomas lives – what’s it like living in a lighthouse? Does his father often have to go out and rescue ships at night?

Plot
I have some slight concerns about the plot. I wasn’t quite sure where the bananas, the old lady etc came from and the purpose they served in the story. This may become clearer the further into the story readers got, but at the moment I’m slightly confused by these occurrences – they seem to come from nowhere and don’t seem to quite fit into the story up until that point.

I was also a little unsure of how Napoleon claims to have acquired the ability to speak – he says he ate a blue flower and then he could talk. He also claims there are other cats who can speak – I wondered how these cats had acquired the power of speech and where they were. Why does Napoleon need Thomas’s help – that to me is the more exciting storyline and the one I think I would pursue rather than introducing the bananas etc. However, as I say these may make more sense as the story progresses.


Genre/Market
I think you have some great characters here and an interesting idea. That said the children’s book market is really quite tough at the moment. Young adult fiction in the paranormal area is doing well as are well-known established authors. However, it’s fairly difficult to publish one-off books from new authors for this age-group. They really have to be absolutely stand-out original ideas and brilliantly written. I think this is a good start and hopefully this critique will have given you some ideas to think about. The very best of luck with it!

All best wishes
Clare

A big thank you to Random House and YWO for an insightful critique. Now--onto the edit!