Cat and Dumpling: Home Sweet Home
by Nicola Kent
Interest age: 6 to 8
Reading age: 6+
Published by Oxford University Press, 2025
About this book
Cat is exuberant, adventurous and creative. Her favourite hobby is knitting, but she has so many balls of wool that she’s running out of storage space in her teeny-weeny flat.
Dumpling the dog has a passion for gardening, and when he's not cooking delicious feasts using his home-grown vegetables, he likes to settle down quietly with a book. Unfortunately, he’s outgrowing his titchy-tiny flat and dreams of living somewhere bigger, with a garden.
Cat and Dumpling each look for a new home and eventually both find the perfect flat – but it’s the same one! Can they find a solution which makes them both happy?
Demonstrating the importance of tolerance, compromise and kindness, this charming tale is the first in a series about these two friends.
It is ideal for newly independent readers who are ready to move on from picture books and face the challenges of slightly longer stories. The short chapters create natural reading breaks, helping to build stamina.
Every page is full of charming, colourful illustrations, which provide gentle humour and plenty of visual clues to help children interpret the tale.
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Lists of recommended reads
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Books about feelings and emotions
While books have the power to transport us to far-off lands and wild adventures, they also help us to look inward; to explore feelings and emotions in a safe, non-pressurised way. Reading about characters' experiences helps children reflect on their own feelings, develop empathy, feel represented, and be reminded that they are not alone in feeling the way that they do.