A Cat of Artimus Pride

Dave Jenkinson is Associate Dean of the Faculty of Education at the
University of Manitoba.

Unlike all her friends, 11-year-old Claire Ross had never been to
Funtastic Park. By building the best float in the children’s category
of the Oakville, Alberta, Heritage Day Parade, Claire could win an
entire book of tickets to the amusement park. When a talking tabby cat
called Cortez comes into Claire’s life, her winning the prize becomes
a means to an end rather than the end itself. Cortez claims that, in his
first life (some 100 years before), he was owned by a man called Artimus
Pride and that now, in his ninth life, he has returned to dig up a
treasure Artimus buried beneath a mountain ash. When Claire researches
the community’s early history, she discovers that Artimus died in jail
of a recurring illness while awaiting hanging for murdering a man over a
mining claim. The buried “treasure,” which turns out to be
Artimus’s diary, is evidently located in the yard of the community’s
mean kid, Carston Walsh. With the assistance of next-door neighbor Griff
Kaminka, 11, and his sister Amy, 4, Claire does win the parade’s
children’s category; she then uses her winnings to bribe Carston into
letting the group dig in his back yard.

That appearances are not always reality is a theme that runs throughout
the novel, and the book’s concluding portions offer readers many warm
surprises. Ohi’s eight full-page line drawings complement Hutchins’s
easy-to-read text. Good characterization and occasional touches of humor
recommend this book as a title for young, independent readers making the
transition into chapter books.