Nominally a feline diary, My Nine Lives By Clio follows the momentous saga of the eponymous Clio the cat, from her days in ancient Mesopotamia to her current life in Minnesota. Spread out both temporally and geographically, the nine lives chronicled here each contributed something new and noteworthy to the world, from the naming of the stars (Clio's first life, in Mesopotamia) to the invention of the fork (Clio's fifth life, in medieval England). Whether causing Mona Lisa to smile, and thus contributing to Leonardo Da Vinci's great masterpiece, or lunging after a bird, and thereby setting Leif Erickson on course for Vinland (ie: America), there's nothing Clio hasn't had a paw in accomplishing...

Being both a confirmed cat-lover, and a picture-book enthusiast, one would think that My Nine Lives By Clio would be right up my alley, and I really expected to find it charming. Sadly, however, I was alternately bored and irritated by it, and am at something of a loss to understand why that would be. I think the artwork and page layout was just a little too cluttered for me, and while the storytelling conceit wass interesting in the abstract, the end product simply wasn't as appealing as it might have been, if it had been a little more humorous. Or perhaps I just wasn't in the mood for this one... ( )

My Nine Lives by Clio
by Marjorie Priceman

Marjorie Priceman explores a familiar belief about cats in ''My Nine Lives.'' It seems, the publisher claims, that Clio, a pumpkin-colored tabby, duly recorded civilization-enhancing episodes from her nine remarkable lives in a -- till now -- secret journal. Found under the couch by her unsuspecting owner, Clio's diary begins with her first life in Mesopotamia, circa 3000 B.C. There, amid the rivers, farms and markets of the ancient land, Clio prowls around, hunts and fishes. Late at night, with her dinner of fish, crab, crow and dippers of milk and water in tow, Clio climbs to the top of the temple. She gazes heavenward and, intuiting from the bounty collected for her feast, she names the constellations. ''Then,'' she writes in her playful, engaging voice, ''I eat.''

Episodes from Clio's other lives occur in times and places as diverse as 1500 B.C. China, 600 B.C. Rome, the Atlantic Ocean circa A.D. 1000, 1795 in France and 1995 in Wisconsin. What this uncommon cat's vastly varying incarnations have in common is the mark of discovery. Page after page done in watercolor provides a charming, historically accurate and whimsically scribbled pencil drawings of Clio inventing everything, it seems, but the wheel. Highlights from her ingenious journal include the appearance of the alphabet in Rome, the creation of the table fork at the court of King Edward I in England and a spell in Italy as Leonardo da Vinci's pet, co-designer of the so-called flying machine and instigator of the famously mysterious Mona Lisa's smile.

But Clio's greatest achievement is her latest one, nine little kittens, some of whom she names after her illustrious partners in discovery: Leif, Mona, Leo. A high-concept book that is wonderfully easy to read, ''My Nine Lives'' includes useful and humorous notes on each of Clio's lives at the end of the book.

This book would be great for elementary grades to introduce the idea of invention and discovery. Students could be asked to think about something that they would like to invent and write about it along with an illustration of their invention. The class could collectively make another secret journal with all of the entries generated by the students. ( )

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