Soon, people in Toronto may be able to enjoy a hot chocolate or a coffee in a “cat café.”
Two groups of people in the city are trying to raise enough money to open cat cafés.
The idea is simple: a café for humans—with lots of cats around.
People will be able to pet the cats while they’re sipping their drinks.
The idea isn’t new. There are already cat cafés in places like England, France, Budapest and in Asia including in Taiwan, Japan, South Korea and China.
Jennifer Morozowich hopes to open her Kitty Cat Café in September. She told The Toronto Star that it will feature six to 15 cats.
Morozowich is a cat lover who says that cats help to lower people’s stress levels.
She is also planning to host special “Litter-ature” events, co-ordinated by the Dundas West Animal Hospital, at her café, with kids reading to the cats.
Some literacy experts say that reading to animals helps kids learn to read better because animals enjoy hearing the human voice and kids don’t have to feel pressure about making mistakes while they’re reading.
Another cat café, Pet Me Meow, will be open in the Fall if Ashkan Rahimi and Jeff Ro have their way. They are trying to raise money to open a place where cats will live, and people can come in and buy a coffee and hang out with the cats.
Both sets of potential café owners will have to make sure their cafes are very clean. The City of Toronto has many rules that people have to follow who want to serve food to humans when there are animals nearby. They have to make sure the food and drinks served are clean. For instance, the animals’ litter boxes need to be in a separate space away from the eating area.
The café owners will get the cats from rescue shelters. If the coffee drinkers fall in love with a particular cat they may be able to adopt it and take it home.
The Toronto cat cafés won’t be Canada’s first. Café Chat L’Heaureux (Happy Cat Café) is opening in July in Montreal, Quebec.
CURRICULUM CONNECTIONS
By Kathleen Tilly
Writing/Discussion Prompt
What do you think about this idea? If there was a cat café near your home, would you visit it? Why or why not?
Reading Prompt: Text Patterns
Before journalists begin to write an article, they think carefully about how they are going to tell a story. One strategy that they use is to write an interesting introductory sentence. This is designed to grab the reader’s attention. The information in the introductory sentence is often mirrored in the concluding sentence.
Why do you think a journalist would want the introductory and concluding sentence to connect? How does this text pattern affect how you read and understand a story?
Primary
Recognize a few organizational patterns in texts of different types, and explain how the patterns help readers understand the texts (OME, Reading: 2.2).
Junior
Identify a variety of organizational pat- terns in a range of texts and explain how they help readers understand the texts (OME, Reading: 2.2).
Intermediate
Analyse increasingly complex texts to identify organizational patterns used in them and explain how the patterns help communicate meaning (OME, Reading: 2.2).
Language Feature: Alliteration
An alliteration is when words that are said or written next to each other begin with the same sound. For example, cat café is an alliteration because both words begin with the same ‘c’ sound.
Write 6 sentences that include alliterations. Try to make your alliterations at least 3 words long.
