>A cat story I can like

by Roger Sutton
May 02, 2006 | Filed in Articles & Opinion
>In real life, I get along with cats just fine, but for some reason I can't stand reading about them--I think it's because they're always made out to be so smug. (My friend Ruth, who has had cats for years, says that the enigmatic look they're always giving you is simply a display of their stupidity.)

But I did enjoy learning, in Leonard Marcus's new The Wand in the Word: Conversations with Writers of Fantasy (to be reviewed in our July/August issue), that as a child Nancy Farmer once had eighteen of the little beasts and "named them all after volcanoes."

Tungurahua, scat!
Roger Sutton
Roger Sutton

Editor Emeritus Roger Sutton was editor in chief of The Horn Book, Inc., from 1996-2021. He was previously editor of The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books and a children's and young adult librarian. He received his MA in library science from the University of Chicago in 1982 and a BA from Pitzer College in 1978.

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Dia Calhoun

>Ah, but what about the famous Narknon, Hari's hunting cat in THE BLUE SWORD by Robin McKinley? Now there's a cat to have at your back, smug or not.

Posted : May 16, 2006 12:47

rindambyers

>Roger, my cats approve of you! They can't stand reading cat stories either....afraid the Met opera broadcast rules in our house amongst the cat community...

Posted : May 10, 2006 03:23

JeanneB

>I agree with the smug cat literature (and I have four of my own). But I have very fond memories of Paul Gallico's THOMASINA, though I think that was more about the people than the cat. Great fake burial scene.

Posted : May 04, 2006 01:25

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