This was a very entertaining book about cats from their place in history to current times. There were stories mixed with factual information such as Nikola Tesla’s cat, Macak, inspiring him to take a closer look at electricity and Sir Isaac Newton inventing the cat flap so his cat, Spithead, can leave and enter the house without disturbing the scientist. Other very interesting stories described the role cats played on ships and in trenches. Of course, there were many wonderful photographs and illustrations that accompanied the texts.
Middle school students will enjoy this book, as well as any animal lover. This would be a great addition to any school library.

We have here a collection of stories featuring cats from current day and history, a few being told from the cat's perspective. There is a decent variety - from cats kept as mousers/ratters to therapy cats to mythology and more. The stories are interspersed with facts about cats. This book is aimed at middle grade readers and I'm not sure it has enough really interesting points to keep a child's interest and it seemed a little tossed together, moving on without feeling like a story had been fully told.

Thank you to NetGalley and Annick Press for the opportunity to read and review this book. All comments are my own, unbiased opinion.

SUPER CATS reveals everything you wanted to know about felines and more ... in an utterly charming package. A purrfect gift for members of your cat-erie and for yourself, yes? How can you resist a book that features Lil Bub AND Grumpy Cat, the why of cat worship, the ways your furry friend can make you healthier, and the many cat-tributions throughout the ages. Five paws ... I mean Stars!

Happy to receive an ARC from NetGalley and Annick Press. Opinions are mine.

#SuperCats #NetGalley

Cats are among the most studied domesticated animals today. Since ancient Euro-Asian times they have been studied and written about.

This beautiful illustrated book and index goes into great detail. Nice for both a "starter" cat person or a "veteran" cat person.


Cats have contributed to much of history, the medical field, and are well known for their superstition "properties" (even Winston Churchill had a Good Luck cat)!


Most importantly, they being love and happiness.


Many thanks to Annick Press and NetGalley for an informative and entertaining book!

Princess Fuzzypants here: Let us get one thing purrfectly clear before I write this review. All cats are super; some just happen to be more super than others.
This is a fun book that tells the tales of some pawsome kitties. It goes back to the time, way, way back, when we cats decided to train you humans. Let me tell you, it was not an easy job at first. We were responsible for keeping your food safe and we were really good at our jobs. Plus we were very soft and furry and cute. You humans were doomed from the start.
The Egyptians got it right when they worshipped us. The fools in the Middle Ages who allowed superstition to cloud judgement paid a terrible price when they killed us cats and let the rats thrive. I guess it served them right.
The book talks about some amazing felines who provided service above and beyond the call of duty and kept many a human company during dark and lonely lives. It even goes up to current times including Oscar, the cat who knows when someone is about to die and gives that person the final moments of solace.
I could go on and on. You will enjoy the stories and the pictures and you will find out more than you already knew about your favourite animal: MEOW!
I give it five purrs and two paws up.

Super Cats is a delightfully informative nonfiction title that will be a welcome addition to any "636.8" section!

This is a delightful middle grades non-fiction book about cats that starts in early history and ends with today. It tells how cats have been viewed throughout time and how they became domesticated. I learned a lot about the history and one surprising fact was that cats were considered evil so were disposed of in the middle ages. As cats were gone, the rat population increased and that was when the plague was on the rise. Once cats were reintroduced, the plague became almost non-existent. Cats were worshiped by the Egyptians and there were actually cat gods and statues. Japan believes in the lucky cat and loves them. They have many statues of waving cats. The reader will learn about the roles they played during war as well as on merchant ships. Cats as pets, cat cafes, cats as support animals and cats who provide company to the dying and their families are all explained. We meet famous pet owners, learn about cat beliefs and superstitions and find out about some famous cats in history.

There are so many asides as well as separate vignettes. The illustrations are a combination of photographs and created pictures. I learned a lot about cats from this book and know that this would be a great read for anyone who loves cats or wants to learn more about them. This is a good non-fiction book for reluctant readers as well as those who do not want to read fiction stories. The stories are written so they can be read easily and flow nicely. This is a wonderful book for any local or school library. It is a great companion book to "Top Dogs: Canines That Made History" also by Elizabeth MacLeod.

This is a delightful book that starts in early history on through today. It depicts how cats have been viewed throughout time. One of the biggest things is when people realized how useful cats were at reducing the rat population and the diseases they carried, they began to understand how wonderful these creatures are.

Cats were worshiped by the Egyptians and Japan loves them and makes statues to them. They were very helpful in World War I and II as they fought along with the soldiers killing rats and detecting poison gas. Cats have always been welcome aboard ships to reduce vermin and keep the sailors company. There are even cat cafes where people can go to pet cats for they are known to reduce blood pressure and provide comfort to people.

I am the proud Crazy Cat Mom to three kitties and they make my life so happy. While I feel like I know them, cats will always keep their owners guessing so don’t ever try to take advantage of them. Cats rule!

Copy provided by NetGalley in exchange for a fair and honest review.

My 8 year old is a huge fan of cat books and nonfiction and this colorful fact filled book made him very happy.

I'm definitely a cat lover...so when I saw the absolutely cute cover of this book, I knew I had to read it! Super Cats: True Stories of Felines that Made History is informative, colorful, and super fun to read!

Chock full of full-color photographs, this book not only tells stories of famous cats, but also gives a lot of history about cats, famous cat owners, brave cats and cats with unusual talents. Each page is colorful and has photographs of just about every sort of cat there is!

This book would be perfect for cat lovers of all ages. Even children who are too little to care about the stories will enjoy the pictures. The stories are varied, ranging from the evolution of cats to felines who have become internet sensations.

The back of the book includes a long list of other books for further reading on topics covered in each chapter in Super Cats. There is also a full index.

This book has the best cover I have seen in a long time, and I thoroughly enjoyed all of the great information and awesome pictures!

**I voluntarily read an advanced readers copy of this book from Annick Press via NetGalley. All opinions expressed are entirely my own.**

Do you like cats? Even if you don't, you may change your mind about liking cats after reading this! There are facts that I did not know about cats. I did know that cats were worship in ancient Egypt but didn't know that it was illegal to kill cats. There was at that inspired its owner to understanding electricity. The owner was Nicola Telsa and his cat's name was Macak. Did you know that cats worked as spies in the 1960's? I didn't. This factual book is full of facts about cats throughout history. There are several photographs of cats included sidelines, a timeline and much more. The author's writing is great for kids to read as she makes it interesting and accessible. Don't miss this book regardless of your age. This is a fascinating book to read!

As a cat lover and cat parent, I can't resist books about cats! this book was so worth the read! I have read some of the stories before, but had no idea Tesla owned one, Or that a cat actually wrote a short piano piece! Some anecdotes are likely to have been heard of before- Egyptians treated cats like gods, used cats as pest control (who hasn't?!), cats as bad luck or evil, etc... but over all nice collection of true tales! May maneki-neko look on the author fondly!

This is a fun little book for kids about all things cat. There are many stories that are cute and other books have been written about many of the cats in this book, but this summarizes things perfectly for kids so they can actually enjoy the stories. The book explains words that would be hard for kids to understand and it explains the history of domestic cats and why they came to be. There were a lot of little things that I learned from this even though I did know quite a bit about the animal to begin with. There were only a couple of things that bothered me, both of them mildly. The first is that some of the stories were actually fiction. I understand wanting to tell stories about particular cats but telling one about a singular cat in Egypt wasn't necessary abs just felt out of place to me as the majority of the book is fact-based. Second was there were no actual stories that involved kids. I think that alone would help the book appeal to children even more. Like I said, pretty minor, and overall it is a good book for kids who want to know more about domestic cats and hear some amazing stories about them.

I would like to thank the publisher, author, and Netgalley for providing me with a copy in exchange for an honest review.

Hey, my mother bread siamese when she was a girl. There were always cats in our house. At one point we had five of them. So, having said all that, I thought I knew everything there was to k now about cats, and though I would be reading the same old stuff that all cat books have.

I was quite wrong.

This is a fantastic, middle-grade reference books, which tells the story of cats, through antidotes, for each stage in their history. And it isn't the stories you have heard before. One very sad story was of a cat that was accused of hunting the Stephen's Wren into extinction.

And thrown in are a lot of cat facts, or cat observations.

Another story is of cats that have helped at sea, such as Simon, the only cat to be awarded the Dickin Medal, which is given to animals who have helped out in wartime.

I think this would be a great addition to any school, public or home library.

Thanks to Netgalley for making this book available for an honest review.

I found this book disappointing. My students love cats and I was hoping to find a non-fiction book with stories about cats. This one had stories about cats that were fictionalized accounts (with the cats as the storyteller) of their lives interspersed with text boxes with facts about cats. The fictionalized accounts seemed incomplete in their tellings about the lives of cats in different historical periods.