The Cat Who went to Heaven

The Cat Who Went to Heaven by Elizabeth Coatsworth is about an artist in Japan who is poor and hungry because no one will buy his art. One day his housekeeper brings home a beautiful white cat with gold and brown spots. The artist is specptical about the cat and thinks it may be a demon but he lets the cat stay anyways. Soon after getting the cat one of the most honored religious men come to his house and tells him that he has been chosen to paint a picture of the dying Buddah. This is a great honor and if the picture is and put in the temple all the people in the town will want the same picture and the artist will become rich. He spends days meditating and living life through the Budda's eyes. He begins painting Will he be able to paint the perfect picture and become financially stable?
    I didn't particularly like this book. I found it a little confusing and boring. I was never able to get intersted in the book. I also found it to be a little weird especially when he was meditating and living life as the Budda and different animals. I could have had a hard time connecting with this book because I don't know anything about the Buddist religion so I could have misunderstood a lot of things in the book. My confusion could have also come from my lack of knowledge about this culture. I would like to talk to someone who has read this book and understood it so they could explain it to me.
    I think this could be used for students to increase motivation for students who are interested in the Japanese and Buddist culture. They would find this book to be very interesting and might understand it better than me. I would not use this book as a read aloud but I would keep it in my classroom library for those students who may be interested in reading it. Even though this is a short chapter book the text and content is very complex so I think this book should be read by advanced fourth graders and older. Males and females would enjoy reading this book because it is gender neutral.