by Moe Zilla

Created on: May 29, 2010

It sounds impossible, but it's true. One of the Titantic's stewardess's had written a memoir revealing that the ship's cat gave birth to a litter of four kittens before the ship launched. And a 92-year-old reporter also remembers a meeting in the 1930s with an Irishman who'd said he'd cared for the cats when he was part of the Titanic's trial-run crew. The children's picture book "Titanicat" tells the end of that man's remarkable story. When the cat insisted on leaving the ship when it docked in Southhampton, the superstititous sailor had followed it ashore…

Marty Crisp, the book's author, interviewed a survivor of the Titanic (Elizabeth Gladys Dean) as well as family members of other survivors, and she and lists six different Titanic biographies that she'd consulted during her research. Her previous books include "White Star," the story of a dog on the Titanic, according to the book's jacket, and she'd also worked as journalist for 30 years. There's a real effort to keep the book accurate historically, and both the author and illustrator pay attention to the details. And  illustrator Robert Papp ultimately dedicates the book to "everyone who remembers to listen to their own furry friend."

Papp's vivid paintings give an eerie realism to the story of the young passenger on the doomed ship. He draws young Jim as an eager red-headed boy in suspenders and a cap, looking up at the ship from its shadow at sunrise. The inside of the ship is luxurious, with a glorious red ceiling over its Grand Staircase and a golden skylight shining down on the boy. But his job is to ignore all the glamour, and watch out for the ship's missing cat!

"There were a lot of places to look for a cat," Crisp writes, "on a ship four city blocks long." It's interesting to watch the story swerve back and forth between the factual historical details and the cute story about the cats. "Four new ship's cats in all," Jim thinks to himself, when he discovers that the cat has had kittens.

"This voyage would be lucky indeed," Jim thinks to himself…

My stomach was clenched all the way through this story, so I guess I'm questioning whether it's necessary to teach young children about the 1912 wreck of the Titanic. ("The sinking resulted in the deaths of 1,517 of the 2,223 people on board," notes Wikipedia.) Though it's a ghastly and morbid memory, its significance may be more as a pop culture reference than as an event with real historical significance. Still, the ship's sinking is revealed delicately, as a news story heard by the sailor six days later. And at the end of the book, the boy scoops the cat up in his arms, and thanks him for bringing him luck after all.

"There was really nothing else to say."

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