The Diary of a Killer Cat (The Killer Cat, 1)

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The comical aspect of this book makes it an extremely useful tool in aiding the development of both children’s reading and writing skills: Find all of the words that the author uses to describe how something is said (e.g. asked, muttered, cried). Make a poster to teach other children about good vocabulary to use in their writing. If you like this book, here are some other books you might enjoy - including the further adventures of Tuffy the Killer Cat.

Anne has written more than sixty books for children and young people. Amongst numerous other awards, she is twice winner of both the Carnegie Medal, Britain's most prestigious children's book award, and the Whitbread Award. Twice chosen as Children's Author of the Year in the British Book Awards, Anne Fine was also the first novelist to be honoured as Children's Laureate in the United Kingdom. In 2003, Anne became a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and was awarded an OBE. Her work has been translated into forty five languages. Tuffy doesn't feel wanted at home any more. His owners just don't appreciate him. So what if he broke the new TV? Got fur on all Dad's clean clothes? Ate Tinkerbell the kitten's special kitten-food? All accidents! But they're making such a fuss! Who on earth will be the next victim to arrive through the cat-flap? Can soft-hearted Ellie manage to get her beloved pet to change his wild, wild ways before he ends up in even deeper trouble? The punctuation, repetition and use of various lengths of sentences enable the book to be an easy yet interesting read, and therefore can be used to help children develop their writing skills. Lessons involving an examination of the writing can be followed up with a lesson in which the children are asked to write an account from the point of view of their own pet involving repetition, exclamation marks, speech marks and the use of both long and short sentences. Poor Ellie is horrified when Tuffy drags a dead bird into the house. Then a mouse. But Tuffy can't understand what all the fuss is about.Because let's face the facts here, Tuffy is able to be such an unrelenting hunter and "killer cat" because Ellie and her family in The Diary of a Killer Cat are shown by Anne Fine as obviously having no qualms whatsoever regarding letting their pet freely and continuously roam outside and with there even being a designated cat door so that Tuffy can freely enter and exit at will. And well, for me personally (and as someone who is increasingly aware of the fact that domestic cats are an invasive species and can be a major threat to and for birds), permitting pet felines to be outside cats or even both outside and inside cats is (at least for me) totally unacceptable and also environmentally problematic behaviour and that at the very least, there should be in The Diary of a Killer Cat more attempts being made to keep Tuffy inside, with me also thinking that Anne Fine as an author and as a person probably seems to think that outside cats are acceptable (with which I beg to differ and that this kind of even makes me, makes my adult self see a bit proverbially red regarding The Diary of a Killer Cat, and that my five star rating for my inner child is lowered to only three stars when my adult reading self thinks about Tuffy being continuously outside in The Diary of a Killer Cat and this all being pretty much considered tolerably unproblematic by Anne Fine).

I took great pleasure in reading this book. Throughout the twists and turns of the cats cheeky comments and actions I had a smile on my face, and I believe that children would thoroughly enjoy reading this book also. The familiar settings of the book causes readers to consider what their own cat (pet) is thinking about their family, and what they could potentially get up to when they go off into the garden and beyond.Tuffy is grounded for his behaviour. Can you write a new story about a pet who is grounded for their bad behaviour? This book is told from the point of view of Tuffy, a pet cat who drags a dead bird into the house. His owner, a young girl called Ellie is horrified but Tuffy cannot see a problem, "So hang me. I killed the bird. For pity's sake, I'm a cat" says Tuffy. He then brings a dead mouse into the house. Before long, Tuffy brings his next victim, the next door neighbor’s rabbit. And this time Tuffy is in deep trouble, Ellie’s parents are very cross. There are a number of books in the ‘Killer Cat’ series. Can you write a new story involving the character? The hilarious antics of Tuffy and his family are told by the killer cat himself. Teaching Ideas and Resources: English Can soft-hearted Ellie manage to get her beloved pet to change his wild, wild ways before he ends up in even deeper trouble?