When Kate Spencer, of Montague, was walking the Camino de Santiago in Spain, she met a kitten at a hostel and named him Don Pedro Pepito. “He didn’t speak any English,” she mentioned.
But he had a narrative to inform, and Spencer determined to inform it. The result’s a story known as “The Cat who Walked the Camino.”
Spencer wrote and illustrated the e book, her first. In it, Don Pedro Pepito, a striped kitten, and his buddy, Lucía, make a pilgrimage throughout northern Spain on the Camino de Santiago. Walking 500 miles, they discover well-known Camino landmarks and encounter pilgrims from all through the world.
They meet Nico, a person touring in a wheelchair. They meet a shepherd and study to make cheese.
After Don Pedro Pepito is attacked by a ferocious canine and valiantly fights again, Lucía rescues him. Although he’s proud he has realized to be impartial, Don Pedro Pepito realizes that being with Lucía is a lot better than being alone.
It’s a e book Spencer wrote for youngsters, however she has discovered it appeals to adults too. “I read an early version to a 3- and a 5-year-old, and they gave me the ultimate compliment: ‘Read it again!’” she mentioned. “Then I got a note from a Camino veteran who said the book was perfect for her age group, which was 80 and up! So, it was written for children but mostly purchased by grandparents to read to their grandchildren.”
The Camino de Santiago (The Way of St. James) is a community of pilgrims’ methods or pilgrimages resulting in the shrine of the apostle James within the cathedral of Santiago de Compostela in Galicia, Spain, the place, in accordance with custom, the stays of the apostle are buried. Created after the invention of the relics of St. James the Greater initially of the ninth century, the Way of St. James grew to become a significant pilgrimage route of medieval Christianity starting within the tenth century.
Spencer walked the Camino, studied Spanish, researched the Camino and its excessive factors and checked out different Camino books. Most of the books had been both tour guides (the primary one revealed within the 1100′s) or private memoirs. “Hardly any children’s books, so even though I had planned a children’s book, I said ‘Ah ha, I have found my niche,’” she mentioned.
Spencer grew up in Great Falls, Montana, on the foothills of the Rocky Mountains. She spent many weekends climbing and exploring the close by cricks and trails. But after 18 years in a rural city, she couldn’t wait to depart and enrolled in school in Boston. There she was launched to conventional musicians as she witnessed one of the best of the Nineteen Sixties people revival. Already a guitar participant, she realized banjo and fiddle.
“After four years in the city, I was ready for the country,” she mentioned. She moved to Amherst, and, having grown up in a retail retailer — image framing and artist supplies — she was able to begin a business.
For 5 years she manufactured banjos — some 600 — advertising them all through the world.
Next got here her Maple Leaf Music business in Brattleboro, Vermont, the place she offered new and used stringed devices.
After 33 years, she left the business and started writing and portray.
“My travels took me to Spain, where I met a little cat on the Camino de Santiago. His story begged to be told, so I wrote and illustrated his book,” mentioned Spencer, who has lived in Montague for the final 47 years. “‘The Cat who Walked the Camino’ is entertaining and educational for both children and adults who love animals and adventure.”
The shiny, soft-cover “The Cat who Walked the Camino” has 44 pages together with a hand-drawn map and glossary of Spanish-English phrases on the finish. It sells for $14.95 and is available at native bookstores and thru Amazon.
