Review: Oscar the Ferry Cat by Molly Arbuthnott

Review: Oscar the Ferry Cat by Molly Arbuthnott

My rating: 3 of 5 stars

When I was in college, I took a class on children’s literature as part of my degree program. While I was not a fan of every story that I read in that class, it did open me up to several topics children’s literature could discuss. So, when I heard about this story, I thought it would be interesting to try and review it.

While this review will end up being formatted a bit differently from my usual layout due to the work’s genre and presentation, I have thoughts that I am excited to share!

Now that that is out of the way, let’s see what this story is about!

Summary

Oscar the cat lives an ordinary life with his family where everything is normal for him. One holiday, while on a car ride, Oscar gets lost and – before he even realizes it – his life will change in ways he could have never imagined. 

Now on his own, Oscar must learn to cope with his new situation in the world. Will he be able to find his way home? 

Thoughts

There were things about this story that ended up surprising me. I think Molly Arbuthnott is playing with an idea that is relatable for children and it is easy to feel and root for Oscar as he goes through this. Oscar feeling lost and alone in the world is significant to the narrative and these feelings work to create the main issue the story follows. While the reader does not get to know very much about what exactly Oscar’s home life entailed, it is clear that it is important to him because of how often he brings it up to other characters. 

Seeing all the illustrations of this new world for Oscar and how his journey progresses is really interesting. It was easy to relate to him because the reader is essentially thrown into the new world along with him and experiences it with him. However, I will admit that I did see one main issue with the structure of the plot, which led to some confusion on my part regarding how certain scenes progressed. I will discuss this in the next section. 

Now that I’ve gotten those general thoughts out in the open, let’s look at the structure of the story!

Structure

Given this story’s intended audience, I was not entirely surprised to see that the plot mostly moves in a linear fashion. One event leads into another, usually in a clear and concise way that is easy to get behind. As I hinted in the last section, I think the only time this doesn’t work is when Oscar is first separated from his original owners. The setting change felt a bit jarring when I first read the story, which may be intentional, but this also meant that it took me some time to regain my bearings after the sudden shift. 

Besides that, seeing Oscar meet all these characters while he is on this adventure ended up being enjoyable, although I see problems with how the narrative reaches the conclusion. While I am looking at this through the eyes of an adult, I do wonder if the ending would come on as quickly for a younger reader as it did for me. I did not see much in the narrative indicating that the story was headed in the direction it ultimately went. Because of this, I was a little confused by the conclusion. It felt like there was more to come.

Now that we’ve looked at how the story is built, I’d like to move on to the writing.

Writing

The writing presents something of an issue for me. At certain points in the story, I feel like the exact setting is not entirely clear, so the reader does not know where Oscar is. This occurred mainly early in the story. At one point, he is on a road with cars, but I don’t think the text was specific enough about where he was. In that scene, I briefly thought he was on a boat, given there is mention of the smell of the sea and a seagull flying around before I noticed the cars in the illustration of that scene. While it makes perfect sense for Oscar to be confused in that moment, I admit that I had some trouble following the events in that part. 

There is another thing regarding the writing that I would like to mention. I don’t usually talk about formatting, but Molly Arbuthnott uses a rather unique trick when formatting her writing. When Oscar is in a new or different situation, the first word or two denoting the change is written in a different font than the rest of the text. I like this technique a lot, because to me it signals something new afoot for Oscar and entices the reader to want to know even more. It is an interesting idea that works well within the context of the story.   

Well, I think I’ve discussed everything I wanted to. Let’s wrap this up. 

Conclusion

I know this review is shorter than normal and that this is not my usual topic of discussion. However, I enjoyed being able to try something a bit outside of my comfort zone and join Oscar on his journey. It is an adventure that I think young readers will easily be able to relate to as they, like Oscar, begin to explore the world around them. For this reason, I will be giving the story three stars.