Holidays usually involve travelling. It doesn't matter if we travel by car, train or plane, our children have to stay in one place for a long time. For many children and their parents it is a very difficult time. I remember when a few years ago I had to sing to my one-year-old daughter for almost 11 hours of traveling on our summer holiday. To this day I don't know why she only stopped crying then and how my husband managed to endure my singing. I'm happy these hardcore journeys are over. Because of travel sickness my children can't read or watch movies in the car. Therefore, we usually listen to audiobooks. If we find something for everybody, we listen together; if not, our children have their own headphones and we enjoy the silence.

Before our last trip I wanted to prepare some audiobooks for my seven-year-old son. We couldn't find anything interesting for him. My daughter found a forgotten and dusty audiobook called "Cat stories" by Tomasz Trojanowski. The recommendation of his older sister was sufficient, and my son had almost 10 hours of meeting with nice characters to look forward to. The audiobook was read with bravura by Jarosław Boberek.

Zofia, Herman and Gienek are cats who live in Big Man's House. Big Man is a nice cool customer who with boundless patience tolerates the creative and crazy ideas of his cats. The book describes the adventures of the cats, who sometimes seem more similar to small, impish children. They are extremely perceptive and curious about the world – they play with unfettered imagination, they hide, watch TV, take part in competitions and parties and play ball games. Just like lot of parents the Big Man has to listen to endless questions and monologues. Fortunately, the cats answer many of the questions on their own. Above all the cats talk to each other, to friends and to Big Man. They talk about important subjects, but they are also interested in more mundane things. They are interested in the weather, the smelly contents of the fridge, the best way to celebrate birthdays, but also appropriate behaviour in the forest, the value of friendship, tolerance and family relationships.

There is something for everyone in "Cat Stories". Children can listen to stories about nice, creative cats, whereas adults can find a lot of humour, cats with an unusual philosophy of life, situations from every home and a fresh take on daily problems. My son, when listening to Cat Stories, often giggled and even chuckled quite loudly and talked about the more remarkable passages.

You should read or listen to these not altogether cat stories. It isn't a new book, because "Cat Stories" received the Kornel Makuszyński Literary Prize for best children's book in 1997. But it is excellent regardless of its age, and it will appeal to those who love cats unconditionally and those who don't really like them.

I recommend it!

Read also
Read to me, mum - my son's vacation reading.
"Incredible adventures of ten socks" i.e. boredom can be creative
Play with me - our favourite board games