Stray - Softcover

A N Wilson

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0857890743 ISBN 13: 9780857890740

Publisher: Corvus

Synopsis

Clever, moving, imaginative and funny, this is both a wonderful adventure story, and a sly look at humans through the eyes of a cat.

A cat of literary distinction - Naomi Lewis, Observer

A.N. Wilson has written a classic... His episodic, quasi-picaresque story is deeply read-on, funny, moving and exciting (Literary Review). Pufftail the tabby cat was a prince among strays. He was charming, adventurous, a gentleman of the road - not for him a life purring around the shins of a Two Footer. Now that he''s old and grey-whiskered, he can laze in the sun, telling the story of his life to his admiring young grandkitten.

Not all his memories are happy though. He''s been thrown out of a moving car, been experimented on in a science lab and joined the violent Cat Brotherhood. Some Two Footers have been kind to him, but he''d rather be free. And he can''t understand humans at all. Why do they live in giant cages? Why do they put smoking chimneys in their mouths? And why do they want their own animals?

About this title

About the Author

A. N. Wilson is a distinguished novelist, biographer, critic and Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. He has won several prestigious awards, including the John Llewellyn Rhys Memorial Prize (for The Sweets of Pimlico and The Laird of Abbotsford), the 1981 Somerset Maugham Award (for The Healing Art) and the 1988 Whitbread Award (for the biography Tolstoy). He has also written a volume of guinea-pig stories called Hazel, and a tale of an escaped hamster, Furball and the Mokes.

From School Library Journal

Grade 6 Up-- Told from the point of view of an old cat talking to his grandkitten, this fantasy laced with playful satire will give readers insight into feline as well as human psychology. An independent stray cat relates a life story which is filled with adventure after adventure. Human behavior is a mystery to him, and he has trouble understanding some human habits, such as putting smoking chimneys in their mouths. Pufftail has had his share of experience with the evil sides of both human and feline natures; he has been thrown out of a moving car with his brother, who was killed in the fall; has been used as a guinea pig in a cosmetic laboratory; and was forced into a cat brotherhood under the control of "Old Tom" and his thugs. He has known, however, some "well-meaning two-footers" who were kind to him, as well as the love of a good cat. His daughter, Tabitha, like her father, is a sprightly, kind-hearted feline who maintains her independent spirit even though she is kept by humans. Readers will not have to be animal lovers to enjoy the humor or to admire the fiesty gentleness and fierce independence of this old cat who has spent his life searching for the meaning of feline life and love and is drawn back to his family and to people to find them both. This poignant story will provide readers with some material for thought on the relationship of animals to humans, humanity's responsibility to animals, and our interdependence on those in the : animal kingdom. --Yvonne A. Frey, Peoria Public Library, IL
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Corvus
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0857890743
• ISBN 13: 9780857890740
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 208