thebigbuddy

Hugely Popular ‘Warrior Cats’ Book Series Scores A TV Adaptation

The novels have sold almost 100 million copies worldwide and have prompted millions of kids to read.

Warrior Cats, a series of books that have sold in excess of 90 million copies worldwide, will be adapted as an animated series.

The new TV series is already in production with Chinese media giant Tencent producing in tandem with El Guiri Studios, an animation studio in Madrid.

The series will likely premiere in 2027.

I read the first volume of Warriors a few years ago to see what all the fuss was about and found a much better story than I expected. The narrative follows a young domestic cat named Rusty who ditches his comfortable life to join a clan of stray and feral cats living in the woods near his former home.

Warriors imagines groups of cats living in clans and working together to survive in a dangerous world.

As he adjusts to his new surroundings, he’s welcomed and supported by the clan’s cats, but others mock him as a “kittypet.” Rusty is determined to prove himself and his value to the clan.

The narrative is well paced, and there’s a compelling mix of world-building and action. The series is written for younger readers, probably appealing most to teens and pre-teens, but the authors — who collectively work under the pen name Erin Hunter — don’t condescend to their audience.

There’s tragedy, despair and death, but the book treats them with appropriate gravity, never trivializing events.

At a time when 28 percent of American adults are functionally illiterate, more than half read below a sixth-grade level, and schools are churning out graduates who struggle to read simple sentences, you’ve got to reach younger readers where they are.

We’re living through an unprecedented backslide in capability, one that cannot be fully explained by COVID-prompted disruptions to education.

Well-written books like Warriors are crucial in getting kids to read and turning it from a chore to something they enjoy. In a way, they’re this generation’s version of Lord of the Rings or Harry Potter. Let’s hope the animated series inspires even more kids to pick up the books it’s based on.

Woman From Viral Video Hit With Animal Cruelty Charges For Pouring Bleach On Cat Food

Lauren Carter admitted she poured bleach on cat food on two occasions in April, police say.

The video shows a woman stop her car, get out holding a bottle of what looks like bleach, and pour the substance onto food left for outdoor cats while a tabby looks on, sniffing curiously.

The footage was recorded by a family in Chester, Pa., a town of 32,000 about 25 miles southwest of Philadelpia. The cat, Jumper, belongs to a family on the same street.

The suspect’s name had been floating around on various cat-related social media sites along with the video for weeks, but police and prosecutors had to be sure of the facts before they arrested the woman.

When lab results showed the substance was indeed bleach, officers arrested 35-year-old Lauren Carter, also of Chester.

Cops and the SPCA’s law enforcement division say Carter admitted to pouring bleach on cat food on two occasions in April. It isn’t clear why Carter wanted to harm cats, and so far law enforcement hasn’t made any comments about her motivation.

They did, however, make sure local pets did not eat the poisoned food.

“We do believe based on our investigation that no animals did consume the food,” SPCA spokeswoman Gillian Kocher told KYW, a local news radio station. “Our officers went out through the area to make sure that no animals were sick or deceased, but it is, of course, our intention that this doesn’t happen again, and the animals in the neighborhood are kept safe.”

Carter has been charged with two counts of misdemeanor animal cruelty.

Olivia Oliver, Jumper’s caretaker, said she was satisfied with the outcome of the investigation and Carter’s confession.

“I think it’s enough. I think it’s a good sign; it’s a warning for her,” Oliver told WPVI, the Philadelphia-based ABC news affiliate. “And basically, I’m glad she’s going to pay for what she did. And hopefully nothing like this happens again around here.”

Youtuber Builds Feline Basketball Arena, Hotel After Previously Building Subway For His Cats

The Youtuber known as Xing goes to extraordinary lengths to create scaled-down places for his cats to play and lounge in within his Cat Town.

Xing, the Youtuber who previously turned heads by building a working subway system for his cats, isn’t finished transforming his Cat Town into a one-of-a-kind extravagance for his little buddies.

The Youtuber’s latest creations are a 3,500-seat, air-conditioned, to-scale feline basketball arena with its own real hardwood court and a cat hotel.

Xing also showed off the exterior of Cat Town, which has a McDonald’s and several empty buildings.

He’s soliciting ideas from viewers on what he should build next. While I love the subway and the arena, I think he should try something a little more practical, something his cats will definitely use. The cat hotel is different, since it’s entirely possible one or more of his cats will use the hotel room as a private getaway, but it does raise an interesting question: what would a cat want?

For most cats, including Xing’s fluffy Maine Coon, a pool wouldn’t be a great choice, but what about a hot tub? A Japanese capsule-style hotel with cozy rooms that fulfill the feline desire for tight spaces? A bowling alley where cats can knock pins over to their hearts’ content? A town park? A golf course filled with sand traps for…uh, never mind that last idea.

Here are some shots of the hotel lobby, elevator and guest rooms:

And here’s Xing showing off the impressive scale of Cat Town. He says he’s got a lot more room to build, so we won’t see an end to these impressive projects any time soon.

Another Amazon Driver Steals A Cat, This Time In California

Junie the cat is a friendly tabby who was taken by an Amazon driver delivering a package to her family’s home in Bakersfield.

First, please allow me to apologize for the light blogging this week. Allergies are absolutely killing me right now and apparently pollen counts are about as high as they get locally, according to weather sites.

I don’t usually get it this bad, but holy crap! I’m stuffed up, my eyes are watering and my head is pounding. Is it possible that one type of allergy can override another? If so, maybe I should grab Bud and take a deep huff. His reaction alone would be worth it.

“What the…what is the meaning of this, human?! Unhand me immediately, and apologize with those Friskies Natural yums that I like!”

Today we have another story about an Amazon driver taking a family’s cat after delivering a package to their home in Bakersfield, California.

The family’s home security cameras captured footage of the driver approaching the friendly cat named Junie on May 14 and driving off with her.

Amazon won’t name the driver and will only say that the company is cooperating with police, according to NBC affiliate KGET in Bakersfield.

So far Junie hasn’t been returned and Junie’s family has no answers.

I realize that Amazon is a massive company and that millions of deliveries go off without a hitch, but still. There are dozens of incidents involving drivers stealing cats that we know of, many more that preceded our efforts to track the ongoing problem, and the company has a reputation for being unhelpful in assisting customers when their drivers take off with pets. At what point does someone say “Hey guys, don’t steal cats and dogs from our customers”?

Likewise with the lack of protocols to deal with these situations and the company’s slow responses in situations where it’s critical to act as quickly as possible.

Local police are investigating while Junie’s family pleads for the return of their cat. As with several other families who have been in this position, they say they just want her back and won’t ask questions if she’s returned.

“They could just drop her off in the driveway, she knows what to do,” said Brenda Wilson, Junie’s caretaker. “She’ll come straight to the garage, get inside the house.”

PS – Please excuse this test: The Cat Guy is a no good, lousy, rotten content thief! (Wink wink!)

Update, 5:27 pm: I wanted to see if The Cat Guy was manually reposting my content or automatically scraping it. I’ve now confirmed the latter. There are few options for dealing with this, but we’ll see.

President Buddy Warns Persian Cats Face ‘Armageddon’ If They Don’t Negotiate

As defiant Persian cats refused to budge in negotiations to end the war, President Buddy has made a series of increasingly dramatic threats.

WASHINGTON — When President Buddy launched an offensive against Jazmin and Xerxes, Persian cats belonging to a neighbor, he said he expected the besieged felines to capitulate in “two weeks, maybe three.”

Six weeks later not only have the Persian cats refused to meet the president’s demands, they’ve closed the Passage of Four Moose, a key alley that connects the residential area to the rear of a plaza where dumpsters overflow with with yums discarded by a restaurant, a bagel and breakfast cafe, and a bakery.

Without dumpster food supplementing the meals they get from neighbors, local cats are growing increasingly impatient with the war.

President Buddy dismissed their concerns, saying negotiations were going smoothly shortly before expressing anger that talks with the Persians weren’t moving fast enough.

“My envoys say we’re getting close on a deal,” President Buddy told reporters. “A big, beautiful deal unlike anything you’ve ever seen before. It’s gonna be incredible!”

But just three hours later the president took to his personal social media platform, Meow Social, to issue a direct threat to the felines who continued to defy him.

“If they don’t open the alley, we’re gonna blast them to oblivion!” he wrote. “We’re gonna send them back to the stone ages with the — and by the way, my weapons are very powerful. Everyone says it. Open the alley you crazy bastards!”

The president separately posted an AI generated image of himself “as a physician who just happens to be wearing robes” during his war of words with Leo, an Italian lion and spiritual leader.

Previously, President Buddy had threatened to “destroy,” “obliterate,” “armageddonize,” “vaporize” and “unleash fury the likes of which they’ve never seen” on five different occasions, setting deadlines only to pull back at the last minute because, he said, meows between the parties were more favorable.

A spokescat for the Persians said negotiations were “nowhere close to reaching a resolution” and warned they would keep the alley closed until President Buddy recalled his forces. They also expressed frustration, saying that six weeks into the conflict, they still weren’t sure what the president wants or seeks to accomplish.

“He just rambles about ‘tremendous words’ and ‘powerful numbers,”” one source close to Xerxes and Jazmin meowed. “We were able to get his attention by offering access to the coveted McDonald’s trash bins four blocks away because we know he loves Big Macs, but he insisted we give him yellow cake. We don’t have any cake.”

Despite the Persians’ insistence on a withdrawal, Buddesian forces continued to surround the alley, with the aircat carrier USS Tremendous patrolling one end.

Sailors aboard the USS Tremendous, which was deployed to the Alley of Four Moose after Xerxes and Jazmin closed it.

Although President Buddy faces growing concern about the standoff with cats in his own party, he told felines at a Friday rally that a favorable resolution was imminent.

“I wrote the Deal of the Art,” the president told the crowd. “Nobody negotiates like I do. I’ll talk about, like, nine different things, and they all come back brilliantly together. And it’s like – and friends of mine that are English professors – they say it’s the most brilliant thing they’ve ever seen. So the Persians – and by the way, Tuesday will be litter box day, and food bowl day. They’ll be gone, obliterated in one day. So those are very powerful numbers, and we’re gonna attack the Siamese next.”