One-Eyed Cat (Laurel-Leaf Books) (Mass Market Paperback)

~ (Author) "NED WALLIS WAS THE MINISTER'S ONLY CHILD..." (more)
Key Phrases: Uncle Hilary, Reverend Wallis, Miss Brewster (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Product Description

Eleven-year-old Ned shoots a forbidden gun just once on a moonlit night and then is haunted by a guilty fear. Was it his shot that wounded the one-eyed cat? "This riveting story is spun with an eloquent simplicity that belies the skill of its telling". ("Booklist", Starred.) A Newbery Honor Book, a "New York Times" Notable Book of the Year, an ALA Best Book for Young Adults and an ALA Notable Book for Children.

From the Publisher

Ned Wallis knows he's forbidden to touch the rifle in the attic. But he can't resist sneaking it out of the house, just once. Before he realizes it, Ned takes a shot at a dark shadow.

When Ned returns home, he's sure he sees a face looking down at him from the attic window. Who has seen and heard him?

Ned's feelings of guilt and fear only get worse when one day, while helping an elderly neighbor, he spots a wild cat with one eye missing. Could this be the thing Ned shot at that night? How can Ned bring himself to reveal his painful secret? --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 9-12
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Laurel Leaf (August 10, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0440227763
• ISBN-13: 978-0440227762
• Product Dimensions: 6.6 x 4.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (35 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #2,900,508 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars ONE-EYED CAT, July 21, 2004

A Kid's Review

This review is from: One-Eyed Cat (Paperback)

The year is 1935. Ned Wallis is 11 years old. For his birthday, Ned's wealthy uncle gives him an air rifle. Ned's father, a preacher in upstate New York, says that Ned is too young for a rifle, so he puts the gun in the attic, telling Ned that when he's 14, he can have it. But Ned goes to the attic after everybody else is in bed and takes the rifle outdoors. While he's aiming it just for fun, he spots a shadow of movement by the shed, and he pulls the trigger. Shooting the gun sobers him up, and he feels very guilty for disobeying his father. He puts the gun away. It has lost all excitement for him now.

Ned doesn't want to tell anybody what he did. But he's afraid because, when he went back to the house, he saw a face looking out of the attic window. He doesn't know who it was, and he doesn't know what the person saw. Then one day, while he's working at his elderly neighbor's house after school, he sees a cat. The cat is wild, dirty, and grungy --- and it only has one eye. There's just a hole where the other eye was. The cat keeps shaking his head, and he's deaf. Ned is sure that he shot the cat.

Winter is coming; Ned and his neighbor, old Mr. Scully, are afraid the cat will freeze to death. He's thin and sick from pain and hunger, and he can't hunt well with only one eye. Mr. Scully sets out food for him, and he and Ned watch through the window while the cat sleeps by the shed. At first it looks like he's going to be okay. The food perks him up. But as the days get colder and it starts snowing, the cat gets sicker. One day he's just a mound covered with snow, and he doesn't move.

Will Ned be able to tell someone what he did? How can anybody forgive him for hurting an innocent animal? What will happen when Mr. Scully has a stroke and goes to a nursing home? Can Ned take care of the cat alone? Will the cat survive? You will want to find out once you start this gripping novel, which won a Newbery Honor award in 1985.

--- Reviewed by Tamara Penny

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars One- Eyed Cat, December 14, 1999

By	Jessica Steele (Pocatello, Idaho) - See all my reviews

This review is from: One-Eyed Cat (Paperback)

The book One-eyed Cat by Paula Fox is is about a boy named Ned. He gets a gun for his 11th birthday. Ned's dad says that Ned is not old enough to have a gun. He hides the gun in the attic. One night Ned decides that he just has to shoot the gun. He goes up to the attic and sneaks the gun out side. All of the sudden, he sees a shadow, he presses the trigger and fires the gun. After a long time he is helping an old neighbor and he sees a cat with only one eye. Ned is sure that he shot the cat and that is why it only has one eye. Will Ned ever tell anybody so that the guilt won't be so bad? Read the book One-Eyed Cat to find out. This was an okay book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars One- eyed Cat, March 11, 2004

A Kid's Review

This review is from: One-Eyed Cat (Paperback)

One-eyed cat was, I have to say was the summit compared to all the other books I have read.It was the kind of book that you can't just put down after one chapter, even though I idmit I may have put it down a couple times.
Ned Wallis lived with his family near the Hudson river in Tyler, N.Y. in 1935. Ned was a very kind and sweet boy, he never talked back to his parents, except once. Reverend James Wallis, Ned's papa, as Ned called him, was about as impeccable as you can get. Ned's mama was an ill woman, she suffered from a disease. The disease caused her hands and fingers to get horribly twisted in knots. Ned also had a housekeeper, Mrs. Scallop. Ned, his mama, and his papa, very much disliked Mrs. Scallop, she was very cruel when it came to her cooking and cleaning. Ned had two neighbors,Mrs. Kimball and Mr.Scully. Mrs. Kimball helped Mrs. Wallis with her sickness, she often visited their house. Mrs. Kimball had over five children. It seemed to Ned as if her children were a bunch of wild monkeys running around her house. Mr. Scully was an extremely feeble man at eighty years old. Ned would help Mr. Scully, after school, with chores that he did for him around his house. After a while, Ned and Mr. Scully became very good friends. Then, of course, there was Ned's uncle, Uncle Hilary. Uncle Hilary, Ned thought was the greatest uncle in the world. He travelled to wherever you could imagine. He frequently sent back presents to Ned of the places he visited. He once sent him back a bronze goat from Greece, that Ned could easily fit inside the palm of his hand.
It was almost Ned's eleventh birthday. Ned was the most excited he ever could have been because Uncle Hilary had come home that day for it!! Ned was very excited, Uncle Hilary said that he could open his present form him!! Except the present that Ned was about to open was very much different than the other ones Ned's uncle had given him. After slowly and carefully unraveling the wrapping paper, what seemed to come out of the paper was, a gun. Ned's father, as being the Reverend did not agree at all with the gun idea. Reverend Wallis talked to Uncle Hilary and told him that he disagreed. Ned's father concluded as saying, "Ned, there is nothing to imagine with a gun except something that was dead." Then he took the gun upstairs, Ned watching him in the process, and placed it in the attic. That night Ned's father told Ned that he trusted him entirely not to touch the gun. Ned stayed up all night, he couldn't stop thinking about how that gun felt in his arms after he unwrapped it. Such power and control he had in himself when he held it. He couldn't help himself, but to go upstairs, in the attic, and get the gun for himself. He took his shoes off so he wouldn't make any noise and he tip-toed to the attic. When he got there he was stucken by light reflecting from the moon, that shone on the beautiful gun. Ned grabbed the gun quickly and quietly stepped out the door to his house. At last, he was free with the gun by his side all alone. Then, he aimed it towards a shadow in the woods, the shadow looked alive to him, but he knew that he wasn't going to shoot anything anyway. All of the sudden, accidently, his sweating, wet fingers slipped on the trigger to the gun and it hit that shadow in the woods. Ned turned back, looking up at the house and in one of the windows to his house, there was someone staring down at him, seeing everything that Ned had done! Ned looked as hard and as close in the window as he could, but he couldn't tell who it was looking at him. Ned studied it later. Could it have been his mama, that can hardly even stand or was it mean Mrs.Scallop. It also could have been his papa.
Ned went along with it as if it never happened, even though he knew that it did. Everyday after school Ned would walk to Mr. Scully's house to help him. Then one day while he was there, Mr. Scully pointed out a strange cat. Ned looked at it closer and noticed that it only had one eye and must have been stuggling to live. It had blood around the rim of his empty eye. Ned went home that night crying, knowing that that must have been the shadow that he hit with the gun that dark night. But, was it really the cat he hit or was really nothing at all?
In conclusion, I thought that Ms. Paula Fox made a beautiful choice in publishing One-eyed cat. If she never had, then I would have never been able to read such an interesting and suspenseful book.