Gareth St John Thomas, is the founder and CEO of Exisle Publishing, based in Australia and New Zealand. He has been involved in the book industry since he was 11 years old, when he started helping his dad at David & Charles. Now, his mission with Exisle is to bring books into the world from voices that otherwise wouldn’t have been heard, and to give readers something with heart. Gareth has written other adult and children’s books including Finding True Connections, Grandpa’s Noises, and Cats Work Like This. He divides his time between the UK, Australia and New Zealand.

A truly innovative book for cat and kitten lovers — Oliver’s naughty and precocious perceptions of humans will delight, surprise and perhaps even shock you.

Oliver Kitten was born in a firetruck and ends up living with a three-generation multigenerational human family in a four-bedroom house. He keeps a diary of his own escapades and the things he hears and sees his family get up to. At once cute and funny, Oliver is a little naughty and sometimes downright wicked in his precocious observations of the things the humans in his house get up to.

Oliver’s family includes a Scottish grandmother (whose knitting wool has adventures of its own), Clint, a sometime unpredictable two-year-old boy, the father Richard, his wife Nicole, and Lucy, their 13-year-old daughter. Lucy thinks she is Oliver Kitten’s owner and spends her life between the fridge and her bedroom, generally with Oliver in one hand and her phone in the other.

Oliver is a diligent kitten and keeps a daily diary covering everything in his life including paper shredding, leaping, purring, meowing, kneading, scratching, grooming hiding, escaping, finding sleeping places and giving licks and kisses.

Elegantly produced with black and white line drawings, Oliver Kitten’s Diary shows us a kitten evolving into a powerful and smart adult cat with lots of fun, affection, love and adventures.

The Australian
“It’s a delight!”

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