KEY POINTS
● The story is about Mr. Cat‚ who opens a restaurant in the countryside.
It becomes crowded with various bugs and animals.
One day‚ his restaurant is terribly damaged by a big typhoon.
What happened to the restaurant after that?
● Through the cycle of the seasons‚ observing the restaurant
guests—both insects and animals—growing healthily‚ readers
can learn about their lives and the preciousness of life.
“A Sweet Restaurant That Gives Happiness”
After feeling lonely one day, Kitty, a cat living in an empty house, decides to open a restaurant. He sows flower seeds and takes care of wild grasses. A ‘Sweet Restaurant’ is opened with such well-tended flowers.
Kitty’s restaurant is crowded with bees, ladybugs, and fire moths in the spring, and ants and snails in the summer. Then one day, a terrible typhoon rages, and Kitty’s restaurant is covered by a pile of dirt washed down from the mountain.
Because the restaurant was ruined by the typhoon and landslide, Kitty suffers from the loss for a long time all summer. However, flowers soon appear again from the messy yard, and insects begin to visit the restaurant again. Kitty has a busy daily life again. He welcomes and entertains guests until late fall, but when winter comes, he closes his business for a while and goes on a trip, promising to be back next spring.
Will Kitty return to the sweet restaurant?
This book is a new fairy tale from Park Hyeseon, a writer whose literary merit was recognized by winning Korea’s representative literary awards. It tells the sweet and warm story of what happens when Kitty, a cat who lives alone in an empty house in the countryside, opens a restaurant. The customers who come to the restaurant are insects and animals that are familiar to us. Worker bees who want to take a break from work, fire moths dancing happily after being moved by Kitty’s food, snails who walked all night to get to the restaurant, and a family of rabbits who came with hungry bellies in the cold winter.
The customers’ stories create empathy as they resemble situations and emotions we commonly experience and feel in our daily lives. In addition, the sight of Kitty paying attention to his guests and carefully caressing their hearts and feelings is touching and brings calm comfort.
As readers follow the changes of the seasons in the story, readers will naturally learn about the annual lives of various flowers, insects, and animals. In addition, the easy story structure leads lower elementary school readers who are transitioning from picture books to reading books to the ‘pleasure of reading books.’
The story of the main character Kitty will not stop with this book but will continue, moving to places such as a hair salon and a sauna, where more fun and enjoyable events await.