Please read the editing guidelines in the first sheet before adding any words!
Discussion Guidelines
Please blur/hide major events in the current week’s pages (however early they occur) and any later content, like so: [spoiler]texthere[/spoiler]
Err on the side of caution!
When asking for help, please mention the page number (or % for eBooks).
Don’t be afraid of asking questions, even if they seem embarrassing at first. All of us are here to learn and someone else will probably be grateful you asked!
People usually find that they engage with and enjoy the discussion much more if they don’t read ahead, though of course it’s up to you
To you lurkers out there: join the conversation, it’s fun!
Participants
Instead of the usual participation poll, please vote to indicate when you’ve finished the book! There are also options for the individual stories in case you’ve only read one or two - if you’ve finished the whole book please select all four options.
I’ve finished the whole book!
I’ve read Story One
I’ve read Story Two
I’ve read Story Three
0voters
Don’t forget to vote in the わんにゃん探偵団 Club poll of awesome too
Come now, he can’t be entirely incompetent - he made it to the rank of inspector! and presumably the truck wasn’t particularly hidden because the thieves didn’t actually want to permanently steal / cause the horrific deaths of dozens of cats, so that might have helped
ねこはねずみをつかまえると、when the cat catches the mouse
主人に - The landlord
はめてもらいたくて - Is this 嵌める? A few very different meanings… I’m lost. But it’s with もらう (to get somebody to do something) and たい (want to) with conjunction
みせにくるそうだけど - came to the store, I heard
、これね - is this right?
I think it means something like “When the cat catched the mouse, he got the landlord to let him in, is what I heard, right?” The part with 主人 really trips me up.
ひきとりてのないねこがいっぱいのっていたんだ
“They said it (the truck) was full of cats without a caretaker”
参加賞の一万円がほしくて、のらねこをつかまえてだした人が、おおぜいいたんだよ。
“The 10k Yen Participation Award (you/I?) wanted”, “the person who catches the stray cats”, “crowd of people exist”?
No clue how to get this into a working sentence…
かわいぞうだからひきとってやってもらえないかな
“Because they’re cute looking, you wouldn’t take them into your care, I wonder?”
Or something like that? I’m really bad at making sentences.
Haha, yeah it’s one of my favorite grammar points. I’m happy whenever I see it in the wild or on BunPro. xD
Yen sentence: Okay again off the mark by a lot. I don’t know why this sentence is that hard. Is there anything that makes it particularly harder? Or am I just not making the connections?
I think I get this negative positive thing most of the time quite easily now it sometimes needs a lot of brain bending.
かわいそう = pitiable - Hah, I was searching a grammar point where there’s none. I should have checked if it was one word.
Well, for starters this is ～て as “because”, which is comparatively uncommon. Plus, the comma after が makes it a little bit harder to recognise that it’s 人が大勢.
the people taking in stray cats just for the contest money and then ditching them after it was all over
Wow, this is the very first book I finished from beginning to end together with the book club while it was running! I’m sad it’s over but maybe we’ll see each other again for the wan wan books?
Thanks to @Radish8 for running this club and taking care of vocab sheet! Also thanks to everyone for answering questions and helping out!
I’m actually kind of disappointed we don’t get to see what happens afterHanae’s shop is overrun with cats like, will she genuinely take them all in? Will she set up a rescue centre? I saw an article the other day about a bookshop which has rescue kittens roaming around in it (they effectively foster kittens from a rescue centre) - more people come to the bookshop than might because there are kittens to pet, and the kittens often get adopted by people who come along to read in the bookshop. Plus, the kittens get really good socialisation!
Also sometimes I hate being an adult! If I’d read this as a kid my reaction would have been “OMG SO MANY CATS I WISH THAT WOULD HAPPEN TO ME”, whereas as an adult I’m like “that is a wildly unrealistic scenario that will end with dozens of extremely stressed out cats injuring each other - not to mention the smelliest bookshop you’ve ever encountered”
In terms of the ‘case’… For me, this was simultaneously the most entertaining story in the book, and also the silliest. Like, holding a cat contest in order to round up all the cats in the neighbourhood, because you’re worried your courier rat might get caught en route? Really?! That’s ridiculous on so many levels I don’t even know where to start
Heh. My first thought even before that was how well-behaved are these stray cats to even go along with being put on the truck, much less not disappear in a cloud of hair the moment the person lets them go?
Start with it didn’t even work, because there was (at least) one cat left out, and some how the mouse gravitated right to it. Probably helps that the hideout was two doors down from the bookshop.
I think I get the meaning of the following sentence, but I did find how it was put together a little confusing:
猫を積んだトラックがゆうべ、発見されたんだがね。
So, the truck loaded with cats was discovered, huh?
I have seen だが as “but / however” as a conjunction between two phrases - but apparently it can also be used as a conjunction where a phrase is left unsaid in the same way as English - “Well, I suppose I could do that, but…” That’s well enough. But the placement of ゆべ and the comma where they are feels super weird to me. Relaxed word order language indeed! I also struggled a little with 引き取りてのない猫, which I thought should be something closer to 引き取られない猫 until I realised it was actually 引き取り手のない猫.
I’d like to again renew everyone’s thanks to @Radish8 for a wonderfully run book club and helping me read my first book in Japanese. 手伝ってくれてありがとうございます。
p.s. regarding the aspersions being cast on 黒星けいぶ’s abilities, having looked at his size on the last page compared to Hanae, I am now sure he is one half of a “two-children-in-a-trenchcoat” team making it actually pretty impressive he did as well as he did.
Having gone back and read the previous stories I’ve now finished the whole book! Thanks to everyone who posted comments.
I’m not sure we ever found out why the title of this book has the word おひるね added? Although I think we all know which character it refers to!
This was an enjoyable read. Catching up on the old comments I was reminded again how beautifully well organised it was by @Radish8, and I enjoyed the grammar points you brought out in the early weeks. Thanks again for all you did in making this book club happen.
but maybe we’ll see each other again for the wan wan books? 
like, will she genuinely take them all in? Will she set up a rescue centre? I saw 