Jan Karon Presents Cynthia Coppersmith’s Violet Comes To Stay: A Mitford Storybook - Cecka, Melanie. Illustrated by Emily Arnold McCully. Viking (an imprint of Penguin), 2006. Unp. $15.99, hardcover. ISBN-10: 0-670-06073-9. ISBN-13: 978-0-670-06073-3. [Easy] Cats—Fiction. Animals—Infancy—Fiction. Dwellings—Fiction.

Father Tim’s scripture-minding dog, Barnabas, wasn’t the only animal with a role in Jan Karon’s Mitford series. Readers may recall that Cynthia Coppersmith wrote and illustrated children’s books about Violet, her white cat. In Violet Comes to Stay, Karon offers this story by Melanie Cecka as one that Coppersmith might have created.

Young readers meet Violet and her brother and sister, born in a crate in a kitchen. Their mother coaches them on the rules they’ll need to follow to kill their enemy—mice—and reminds them that God has a plan for each of them.

As the kittens grow and learn and eventually are adopted into new homes, Violet shows she’s not the mouser she’s expected to be. In the end, she finds a happy home in a book shop with an owner who agrees that mice are God’s creatures, too, and there are other ways to deal with their troublesome habits besides killing them.

Cecka’s story and Emily Arnold McCully’s charming illustrations in vibrant, paint box colors make this book a delight for ages three through five.

Monica Tenney, Media Review Editor
Maple Grove United Methodist Church
Columbus, Ohio