Great Rescues Day Book
Many of you may be familiar with the Great Rescues Calendar and Gift Book—this is the follow-up to that book. I had wanted to introduce the Great Rescues concept with a product that everyone uses, a desk calendar.
But by nature calendars are dated and the product I had in mind was a more timeless day book for tracking events and anniversaries and birthdays and other annual reminders and happenings, and for taking notes and organizing information to be kept over a long period of time. This way, the art and stories can stay with you for as long as you use your day book—I’ve used my current one for over 20 years—and I don’t have to wait another full year to publish the next calendar.
Because I had a limited number of 2011-2012 calendars printed I am publishing my first Great Rescues Day Book with those same 16 portraits and stories so that others can still enjoy them, and I can continue work on the next one without worrying about a strict publication date because of the calendar in it.
The left-hand page of each spread features the portrait and rescue story, and each month still has its theme reminder, but in place of the calendar is a page of lines with numbers so you can write in a birthday or annual event on the line for that date and not be concerned about the day of the week.
Sample day book page.
These day books also come in handy for keeping track of your pets’ birth/adoption and health records.
Most people keep track of contact information digitally, but I have included a few pages for address and phone information.
And behind that is a section of the “22 Cats” notebook paper for your notes to yourself or to others. These books are also printed on a matte-finish stock through the entire book for greater ease in writing note with markers and gel pens, and even with pencils. In addition, because I hope you’ll use this constantly for years to come I’ve given up the die-cut cover for now and created a solid cover on heavy-weight matte-finish cover stock.
Sample page of 22 Cats notebook paper.
Bernadette Kazmarski calls Great Rescues, her one-woman work of wonders a “calendar,” and it is, but that’s just for starters. Literally. The first thirty-two pages of the 8”x8” spiral-bound book comprise a sixteen-month calendar that runs from September 2011 to December 2012. Each two-page spread features the true story of one or more rescued cats, together with Bernadette’s exquisitely detailed portraits of them (all in all, twenty-two cats are pictured). The calendar pages have room for appointments, some blank lines for notes, a famous feline-friendly quotation, a tip that sets the tone for the month, and more special days that honor cats and other animals than you’ve ever seen listed in one place.
The middle section of the book contains a few pages to update the rescue stories and discuss the making of the individual portraits, then a dozen pages of resources. A cat rescuer herself for twenty-five years, Bernadette states that the information she has chosen to include is what people most commonly ask about. All the basics are there, and they reflect the central theme of the book—which is the human/cat bond: adoption, routine and emergency veterinary care, spay and neuter, household hazards, pet loss support.
At this point the book becomes a journal. There are forty pages with lines ready to record all the clever things your cats do or to track their growth or maybe chart their veterinary visits and medication schedules. Or not. Here’s a different plan: How about committing to one action per day, small or large, in support of cat rescue? S-t-r-e-t-c-h your imagination to come up with as many different actions as possible, maybe even a different one for every day of the year. Bernadette has sprinkled ideas throughout Great Rescues that will spark your creativity.
This book is dedicated to Bernadette’s first family of cats. All long since departed from the physical world, she notes that they are made immortal in everything she creates. That’s a lot of immortality, as she has drawn the portraits, written the stories, compiled the resources and then designed the thing and finally published it herself. Lovely to look at and read and hold in the hands, Great Rescues is an altogether “up” experience, where people are compassionate and good, and however troubled their beginnings, all cat stories have happy endings.
Marion Lane
Former Editor, ASPCA Animal Watch Magazine
Cobleskill, New York
