"Kitty-cat tales" by Alice van Leer Carrick is a collection of children's stories written in the early 20th century. Framed by a lonely girl named Dolly and her talking kitten Impty, it offers cat-centered fairy tales, fables, and folk retellings shared night by night. The tone is cozy and moral, with whimsical adventures and gentle humor told in a classic, read-aloud style. The opening of this collection finds Dolly, left with strict
Miss Jane while her parents are away, comforted by Impty, a black kitten who speaks and promises a new “Kitty-Cat tale” each night. First comes The White Cat, where a prince aided by a mysterious feline wins three trials and frees an enchanted princess. Next is the Japanese tale The King of the Field-Mice, rewarding a kind gardener while punishing a greedy neighbor. The Discontented Cat shows a cottage cat, dazzled by palace luxury and bullied by a lapdog, learning home is best. In The Cat Who Married a Mouse, a tom’s lies—Top-off, Half-Gone, All-Gone—end in betrayal and the mouse’s demise. Mother Michel and Her Cat follows Moumouth through a steward’s plots (drowning, poison, coercion) to a joyful return and the villain’s downfall. Two brief fables—Venus and the Cat and The Cat and the Fox—stress that nature doesn’t change and one sure trick beats a hundred vain ones. The excerpt closes as Dick Whittington begins: Dick finds work in London, sends his cat on a trading ship, nearly runs away, but the Bow Bells call him back just as the ship reaches a foreign court. (This is an automatically generated summary.)
Carla Foust, Charlene Taylor and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team at www.pgdp.net (This file was produced from images generously made available by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)
Reading Level
Reading ease score: 75.5 (7th grade). Fairly easy to read.
