Once upon a time, more than 20 years ago, my toddler introduced an imaginary friend: a cat called Sitty. She was a member of our family and our storytelling for several years - except one afternoon, when apparently she said she didn’t want to be my child’s friend any more! They made it up. Six-dinner Sid lives on Aristotle Street, whose residents pay no attention to one another. So each day Sid sashays from house to house eating six different dinners, sleeping in six different beds, being scratched in six different places. Until...busted! Count on Sid to find a solution that satisfies his supersized appetite for food and love.

Inga Moore (2010). Six Dinner Sid: A Highland Adventure. Hodder Children's Books. ISBN 9780340988954. OCLC 455803269 . Retrieved 23 September 2021. This original picture book classic has sold over 250,000 copies and is in the Daily Telegraph's top 50 children's books of all time. Because the residents don’t talk to each other, they don’t realise. But when they do find out, they’re furious. So Sid moves to Pythagoras Place, where people chat with their neighbours, so they know he’s a six-dinner cat, Three years later, in a different house, they were finally able to have their own cat, or rather, the cat has them. There isn’t a catflap, and is near a main road, so they chose a housecat. No chance of a Sid setup with Noodles.Years later, when my cat-loving child moved to a shared house with uni friends, a cat they dubbed Shia LaFluff often came in through the window. Wary of creating a Sid situation, they offered cuddles, play, and water, but never food. The silo mentality of the inhabitants of Aristotle street is exploited by the eponymous cat to score six dinners every day – at some psychic cost as he must remember six distinct names and identities, but the illustrations show him becoming pleasingly plump at the end of the day so the stress of performing the different roles required of him does not seem too overwhelming but perhaps that stress does precipitate the cough that exposes the dangers of the Aristotelian approach to life and brings to an end one phase of Sid’s heroic life, dedicated to the pursuit of life, liberty and six dinners a day and the rejection of the bourgeois anthropocentrism of the Aristotelians. Goodreads reviewer Sid divides his time between six houses in Aristotle Street: six names, six personalities, and six dinners. Inga Moore has beautifully depicted two British streets. One street contrasts with the other, in a didactic kind of way to be fair — in Aristotle Street the neighbours don’t talk to each other, whereas in Pythagoras Place, one street over, they do. Gioacchino Rossini's Duetto buffo di due gatti (Comic Duet for Two Cats) Sample: www.youtube.com/watch?v=iEud_O2cSfo

Each of Sid’s ‘fursonas’ equate to a different cat archetype as established by folklore, nailed down by T. S. Eliot. DESIRE Thanks to an inviting review from my GR friend Laysee, who was buoyed by Sid when she was feeling ill, I helped myself to Sid and his six dinners and saved him for a proverbial rainy day. I'm glad I did; this clever cutie has me smiling and I know he will again and again.We couldn’t find Pippa anywhere in or out, but Katie took an instant liking to her potential new humans, and they to her. She went home with them and settled very contentedly, immediately. All is perfect for Sid – until the day he catches a dreadful cough. Then it is off to the vet not once, but six times! Inga Moore’s humorous illustrations capture Sid’s sly nature. SHORTCOMING Inga Moore (1945 – present) is an Anglo-Australian author and illustrator of children’s books. As a child, she was very imaginative and drew all the time, illustrating her own stories but also her schoolbooks and homework. After her Latin teacher told her off for her ‘silly drawing’, she sadly stopped making art for a while. Instead of going to art school she worked in lots of boring, unimaginative jobs. But one day, while working in mapmaking, she had to draw some landscapes, and rediscovered her passion. She has also said that reading Father Christmas (1973) by Raymond Briggs was a turning point in her career, as she realised creating a picture book was a wonderful, inspiring thing to do. She began working as an illustrator and returned to England to recapture her childhood memories. During her time living in Hampstead she wrote Six Dinner Sid. Create a Numicon Shape street using these colourful posters and try a variety of number activities. What are some practical number activities for EYFS?