Customer Reviews

The Town Cats and Other Tales

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(0)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

"Never take a cat for granted!," warns the back-cover copy of this collection, and Alexander, like myself, has obviously enjoyed a long association with felines and knows whereof he speaks. I originally read this book out of the library years ago and was delighted to find it back in print. Any child (or adult) for whom Puss-in-Boots was a major hero will want to have it in his collection. Alexander's cat-heroes, from Pescaro, who dupes an unwelcome royal bureaucrat in the title story, through Witling in "The Apprentice Cat," may all be able to talk, but otherwise they clearly *think* like cats--sometimes to the detriment of the people around them. (As Mark Twain famously declared, "If man could be crossed with the cat, it would be an improvement for the man, and a comedown for the cat.") There's Margot, who helps a princess marry the man she wants; Baraka, who plays chess and teaches the sultan a valuable lesson; Quickset, who relieves his village of the tyranny of a greedy storekeeper; Vaska, who shows his human the folly of trying to imitate one's betters; Hillesum, who saves the career of the painter he lives with; and the Master of Revels, who helps the fiddler Nicholas earn the recognition that is his proper due. Laszlo Kubinyi's illustrations are as delightful as the stories (don't miss the vignette on the title page). This book will remain on my shelf till the floor falls through.

Lloyd Alexander is one pro-feline author, since he has written other books starring cats: THE TIME CAT and THE CAT WHO WANTED TO BE A MAN. This is a delightful little book--featuring a bold tom garbed in a cloak, who reminds me of that clever, fabled Puss in Boots. The premise of these 8 tales is simple: the cats, talk, dress and interact with humans quite naturally, although certain feline characteristics remain.

While the cats featured in each tale exhibit wit and wisdom, the merely human characters prove absurdly lacking in these desirable qualities; it takes a cat to get many of them out of their scrapes. The people prove vain, gullible, mean or greedy. However most cats are smart enough to be content with themselves just as they are. One tale provides us with an underlying theme: no cat worth his whiskers wants to be what he is not; better a cat than a (human) jackass!

The settings for these tales are not specififed, but there is a definite European flavor; the names of the characters give hints: Italy, France, Poland, Holland, England, the Middle East, and some place out of Grimm. Alexander's style is light and lively; with wry humor he pokes fun at human foibles as viewed through the intelligent eyes of cats. This is a quick and enjoyable read--a must for all cat lovers. When it comes to the short story genre, Kitka rates this a full Nine Lives!

This is a great book about many cats who have saved the day! One of the cats saved a town from a being ruled by a king. Another cat painted a picture and reminded people better to be cats than fools. One cat even let a princess marry who she wanted. This story has many different, wonderful stories about cats that can do remarkable things. I would reccomend this book to anyone even if they dislike cats!

I am a big fan of Alexander's Prydain Chronicles, and saw that he had written other books as well, so I decided to check them out. This was the first that I read, and I must say that I am looking forward to reading the rest even more now. This book is an excellent collection of short fairy tales starring feline heroes/heroines. Each story is mean to teach a lesson, as in Aesop's Fables (I am not sure why a previous reviewer said that this was not the case, as it is rather obvious from reading the book). I will give only one example, as I do not want to give too much of the book away. One story which Alexender tells is about a Cat and a fiddler. The fiddler is invited to play for the cats evening party, and enjoys it so much he promises to come back again the next week. During the week he is offered a tidy sum of money to play for a prestigious man on the same night that he was to play for the cats. The fiddler does the right thing and keeps his promise to the cats, and after a few more incidents in which he also keeps his word even though it is to his immediate disadvantage, he is rewarded by the royalty of his country for his goodness.

Mind you, it is not just simply stories with a moral either. Alexander manages to make the stories delightfully funny as well. It almost reminds me of Rudyard Kipling's Just So Stories (the method of telling the story, not the content), and he has some of Kipling's sense of humor as well.

This is one of those rare books that has the mark of a true fairy tale: both children and adults (those who are not too serious, mind you) are delighted by them. They are fun enough for children to enjoy and deep enough for adults to read withough feeling as if they were wasting their time on nonsense. Such a combination is becoming harder and harder to find these days, and Alexander provides us with a gem in the fading art of fairy tale telling.

Overall grade: A

Great book for any cat lover

author of "Hobo Finds A Home"

The Book I am going to review is called "The Town Cats" by Lloyd Alexander, author of the Prydain chronicles. This book resembles Aesop's fables, with animals acting like men, but it does not have so many morals. This book is a collection of short tales about cats, acting in the capacity of men. It doesn't fall into any generic category; however, it is humorous, and some of the stories could be called fairy tales.
For example, one of the stories begins like this: a tailor becomes rich. He starts acting strange, trying to live up to his wealth. Yet his strange behavior does not agree with his cat, Vaska. In a strange and hilarious way, Vaska teaches his master how to act normal again. That is one of the stories with more of a moral at the end.
The book is very funny, and it is original. It has a particularly funny tale about a cat and his master, a painter. The subjects he paints are never satisfied, and they never come to sit and let him draw them. Then, the cat takes up the brush, and the subjects learn a lesson about their image of themselves.
As the author says, "Cats being more sensible than the rest of us, the idea of a set of tales demonstrating this came easily to mind. The problem wasn't finding enough examples, but keeping them to a manageable number." I think he did a good job of showing humans' greed and lack of sense, and he made it neither too short, nor too long, but just right.
Lloyd Alexander is a great author. He spun eight great tales about cats into a wonderful book. I recommend it to cat lovers, and people who like to laugh (I include myself in both categories).

Lloyd Alexander is great at putting emotions into his books. I've never laughed out loud because a book was funny until I read his books. I loved how smart the cats were.