Miss Mink: Life Lessons for a Cat Countess

Miss Mink: Life Lessons for a Cat Countess is a compilation of life advice Miss Marcella Mink learns from her entourage of sixty-seven cats. Miss Mink had started a cruise company where she could sail the seas with her cats. Tired from all her business work, Miss Mink looks for life aphorisms from her feline companions: “Collected in this volume are Miss Mink’s twenty-cat approved lessons for living a purrfect life.” Each two-page spread has an illustration and an accompanying life lesson; for instance, “Lesson Nine: Show kindness, even to your enemies” is exemplified with the illustration of Miss Mink and her cat friends sharing coffee with a dog at an outdoor café. On the last pages of the book, readers learn the names of these sixty-seven felines, including “Bad Breath Brady”, “Moppet”, and “One-Eyed Hamish”.

The oil on canvass illustrations using art deco and flapper stylings create a dazzling backdrop for the book. Miss Mink is dressed luxuriously (as her name aptly suggests), and her gorgeous wardrobe rivals that of the Phryne Fisher character in the mystery novels by Kerry Greenwood. The illustrations are very rich: each cat in the story has a personality, and the continuity in the illustrations provides an engaging secondary storyline for readers. For instance, Miss Mink adopts a lion from a circus, and the lion then becomes a part of her cat clowder. I enjoyed looking for the lion in the illustrations on the subsequent pages and how he fit in with his new feline friends.

Miss Mink: Life Lessons for a Cat Countess is a follow up to Hill’s previous book, Miss Moon: Wise Words from a Dog Governess. (https://www.umanitoba.ca/cm/vol22/no19/missmoonwisewordsfromadoggovernes...) But full disclosure: I am a cat person. Since I believe cats have us (and dogs!) beat in the philosophy of life department, taking life lessons from cats is not a stretch for me. But I am unsure if Miss Mink: Life Lessons for a Cat Countess is truly a picture book meant for children. For instance, my own children giggled at the advice of “Always get lots of sunshine” with the cats wearing sunglasses and “Eat your greens first and dessert will taste even sweeter” with cats gleefully chomping on houseplants. But beyond the overt humour, there is no doubt that I liked the book and the life advice more than they did. Miss Mink: Life Lessons for a Cat Countess would have great appeal for fellow grown-up cat lovers as a gift book or coffee table book. But for a younger audience, Miss Mink: Life Lessons for a Cat Countess is a book well-suited to be shared reading experience between adults and children.