First of all, let me get one thing straight. You can, potentially, book-jump. There is no great mystique about it. It’s pretty much like frightening dogs, as a matter of fact. All cats are born with the natural ability to do it, but whether or not they actually make a success of it depends on how much confidence they develop and whether they can be bothered to learn the few simple rules necessary to avoid mistakes.

The first, and most obvious rule, is this: learn to read! The more intelligent among you will be twitching your whiskers at this, but you would be astonished how many cats have asked me about book-jumping without first troubling to master this elementary skill. If you have a human of literary tastes, then learning to read is not at all difficult; simply curl up on, or alongside, your human while he or she is reading, and closely monitor his or her reactions to the text. You will soon be able to identify basic ideas and link them to the written word, and from the original conceptual leap it is simply a matter of progressive refinement. Cats with non-literary humans have a more difficult task, though I do know a Burmese who taught herself to read using teletext, so these obstacles can certainly be overcome with a little determination and ingenuity.

Begin with fiction in which you will feel comfortable. Alice in Wonderland is an excellent place for kittens to start, as the UA of W Cat is always more than happy to welcome feline visitors, especially if they remember to bring a small edible gift. However, if your human doesn’t happen to have a copy in the house, any novel with which you are reasonably familiar will generally serve. At the very worst, most humans (including fictional ones) will simply ignore a strange cat, although if you are forced to wear a conspicuous collar it may be best to stick to modern novels until you are more experienced. If not, The Pickwick Papers contains some extremely friendly characters who will generally be very happy to feed you titbits, but be careful to stay out of the back story. One particular character, who never appears in person but is mentioned at one point by Sam Weller, is extremely dangerous to cats and should be avoided at all costs.

Be careful to read the book thoroughly first so that you know exactly what you are getting into. That way, you will avoid the sad experience of a Persian friend of mine who, in an attempt to escape temporarily from his humans when they were both extremely drunk, leapt straight into a book which he believed to be called Eugene One Gin in the hope that there he would find someone of more moderate habits. My friend did not speak Russian, and got so hopelessly lost that it took him some time to find his way out of the book again.

This brings up the peculiar problems of jumping into translations. From a book-jumping point of view, a translated work is highly unstable; the literary influence of the original tends to attract book-jumpers who incautiously leap into translations, which of course is exactly what happened to my unfortunate Persian friend. It is possible to remain in a translation, but only if you are quite sure what you are doing, and therefore I strongly discourage any kitten under the age of 6 months from attempting such a feat. If you are not sure whether your favourite novel is an original work or a translation – and it is not always easy for a kitten to discover this, since many humans automatically turn the title page straight over in order to get to the text, hence obscuring the name of the translator if there is one – then there is a simple trick for finding out. Playfully bat your human’s hand, remembering to keep your claws sheathed for this one. Nine times out of ten, the human will let go of the cover and you can then quickly flip it over and look at the title page yourself. Be prepared for any number of cute patronising remarks. Honestly, it’s worth all that to avoid ending up stuck in a foreign language text.

We now come to the question of jumping into non-fiction. This can certainly be done, but it is best avoided by young kittens and other beginners. I know, I know, it can be so tempting to leap into your human’s beautifully illustrated bird books by David Attenborough, but please resist the temptation until you have solid experience based on several different novels. If you enthusiastically leap into the Australian bush in search of a particularly succulent-looking fowl, it pays to be well aware that there are unlikely to be any friendly humans close at hand who will rescue you if you are attacked by something you didn’t expect. You will also have to keep leaping back and forth for water, unless you are very lucky and bring down your quarry first time. Don’t go for the actual birds in the photographs. Not only is it deeply unsporting, it also plays havoc with the text and winds up the UA of W Cat no end.

Some cats are lucky enough to have humans who write fan fiction, and this can be a source of unlimited entertainment as long as you play your cards right. They are likely to write several different stories about the same set of characters, and this is where you can amuse yourself. Select the most paranoid character in the group; there will always be at least one, as fan fiction characters are usually a little unstable anyway due to having been written by so many different authors. It helps if your chosen character is also reasonably intelligent, though it isn’t essential. Turn up and lurk in one of the stories, then make sure your character (but no-one else) gets to see you. Repeat with another story. Continue until you either run out of stories or get bored. It works best of all if the setting is somewhere a cat would not be expected to turn up, such as on board a spaceship. You wouldn’t believe how worried I’ve got Avon. In fact, I have a feeling he still hasn’t mentioned anything to Blake.

Finally – and I really can’t emphasise this too strongly – DO NOT BE TEMPTED TO JUMP INTO TEXT ON THE WEB. There is still a team of highly trained and dedicated volunteers from JurisFiction, both feline and human, desperately trying to track down a small black and white kitten by the name of Bonnie who jumped into a short story on a website while her human was out of the room. Her human, not knowing she was there, closed the browser when she returned, and Bonnie has not been seen since. We can only hope to GSD that she is safe. Don’t let this happen to you.

Although I’ve ended on a solemn note of warning, if it is done correctly and with due caution, book-jumping is a deeply rewarding and enjoyable experience. I look forward to meeting many of you in my travels throughout the world of fiction.