Help Reunite the NYPL Lions

The New York Public Library lions, Patience and Fortitude, have been greeting patrons since 1911.  When Patience disappears, Fortitude must search the library high and low before sunrise, when they both must return to their pedestals.  Can you help them be reunited?

MPL Book Trailer #464

Lost in the Library:  A Story of Patience & Fortitude

by Josh Funk (illustrated by Stevie Lewis)

This delightful children's picture book will entertain young readers while they help Fortitude search for his lost friend, learning about the New York Public Library along the way.

If you ever have a chance to meet the lions in person, you should.  They are quite an impressive pair!  I met them at the end of 2011, as I previously blogged.  Buffalo Gal took my picture and everything.

Moi with Patience (or is it Fortitude?)

Your Roving Reporter On The Go,

Cauli Le Chat

The Power of Love Makes True Feline Heroes

In 1996, a mother cat gave birth to a litter of five kittens in an abandoned Brooklyn building.  (That's Brooklyn, New York, not Brooklyn, Indiana, which is just a few miles south of my hometown, Mooresville.)  While out foraging, Mama returned to find the building engulfed in flames.  As firefighters battled the blaze, Mama entered the smoke-filled, burning structure and retrieved her kittens and carried them to safety.  She was severely burned and injured but survived, as did her entire family (although one kitten later succumbed to an illness).

Called Scarlett by workers as the North Shore Animal League, she was adopted by Karen Wellen, and two other families adopted her surviving kittens, as this video below explains.

"Scarlett the Cat" (2013) by Khai Darulnaim

Several books were published about Scarlett and her heroism, including Hero Cat (2006), a children's picture book written by Eileen Spinelli and illustrated by Jo Ellen McAllister Stammen.  Our book trailer gives a brief summary.

MPL Book Trailer #462

Hero Cat, by Eileen Spinelli

(illustrated by Jo Elen McAllister Stammen)

Scarlett passed in 2008 from natural causes.  She represented the finest feline qualities, demonstrating that the power of motherly love can overcome any obstacle.  I never had the privilege of meeting her or her kittens, but her example shines as a reminder that there is a hero kitty inside us all, to be called upon in our times of crisis.

Your Roving Reporter On The Go,

Cauli Le Chat