Paul Gallico – She Reads Novels

This week Mallika of Literary Potpourri is hosting her third annual Reading the Meow event – a celebration of cats in literature. Last year I read and loved Paul Gallico’s Thomasina, so reading one of his other cat books seemed like a good plan for this year’s event. Jennie was originally published in 1950 (and also appeared under the title of The Abandoned in the US) and like Thomasina, it’s a book aimed at children that can also be enjoyed by readers of all ages.

Peter Smith is a lonely eight-year-old boy whose father, an Army officer, is often away from home and whose mother is too busy going out with her friends to have any time for her son. Peter has always wanted a cat of his own to provide the companionship he longs for but isn’t allowed one as his nanny is afraid of them. Everything changes for Peter when he is knocked down and injured running across the road after a striped kitten. When he awakens, he finds that he has been transformed into a white cat – and is immediately thrown out of the house by Nanny.

Alone on the streets of London with the body of a cat and the mind of a boy, he encounters an aggressive yellow tomcat, Dempsey, who decides to defend his territory and leaves Peter unconscious. He is rescued by Jennie, a small kind-hearted tabby who believes Peter’s story and offers to teach him how to behave like a real cat. And so Peter finds himself having lessons on washing, lapping milk, catching mice and the important of pausing in doorways to survey his surroundings! Meanwhile, Jennie tells him her own story of how she was left behind when her owners moved away and began to live the life of a stray. She convinces him to travel to Glasgow with her – because she was born there – and this is the start of many adventures the two have together.

I’m so disappointed that I didn’t read this book as a child as I’m sure I would have loved it. I did still enjoy it as an adult but I don’t think it had the same emotional impact on me that it would have had if I’d been in the target age group. It’s a lovely story and Peter and Jennie are both very likeable, but I felt that this book didn’t have the depth and layers that Thomasina had. Having said that, there were still some moments where I felt a tear in my eye, particularly towards the end!

I loved the relationship between Peter and Jennie and the way they help each other to learn and grow. Peter is completely unprepared for life as a cat and relies on Jennie to teach him even the most basic things, but at the same time, his knowledge of how people behave and think and his ability to read and understand human speech proves very useful to Jennie. Like all good friends, Jennie and Peter have their disagreements – such as whether to accept a kind old man’s offer of a home – and on another occasion, Peter has his head turned by a pretty Siamese called Lulu, but I was sure their friendship would be strong enough to survive! The book was a little bit predictable and I guessed what would happen at the end, but maybe a younger reader wouldn’t.

This was a good choice for Reading the Meow – and also my first book for this year’s 20 Books of Summer! I’m now reading another cat-themed book which I hope to have time to review before the end of the week.

Book 1/20 for 20 Books of Summer 2025.

When I saw that Mallika of Literary Potpourri was hosting her second Reading the Meow event this week – a celebration of cats in books – I knew exactly what I wanted to read. The Disney film The Three Lives of Thomasina was a favourite of mine as a child, but it never occurred to me to read the book on which it was based until I noticed that Lory of Entering the Enchanted Castle had read it for last year’s Reading the Meow so onto the list it went!

Published in 1957, Paul Gallico’s Thomasina is set in the fictional Scottish town of Inveranoch. Having lost his wife a few years earlier, veterinarian Andrew MacDhui has moved to the town from Glasgow and opened a surgery there, where he treats the pets of the townspeople, as well as looking after the health of the livestock on the surrounding farms. When the novel begins, MacDhui has only been living in Inveranoch for eighteen months and has already gained a reputation as a cold, bitter man who is good at his job but not mentally suited for it:

The gossips allowed that Andrew MacDhui was an honest, forthright and fair-dealing man, but, and this was the opinion of the strictly religiously inclined, a queer one to be dealing with God’s dumb creatures, since he appeared to have no love for animals, very little for man, and neither the inclination nor the time for God.

Since his wife’s death it seems that MacDhui has given what little love he still possesses to his seven-year-old daughter, Mary Ruadh, who is devoted to her ginger cat, Thomasina. When Thomasina becomes ill with a suspected meningeal infection, Mary takes her next door to her father’s surgery and begs him to save her pet’s life. Not pleased at being interrupted at his work and distracted by a difficult operation on a blind man’s dog, MacDhui tells her that Thomasina can’t be cured and orders his assistant to put the cat to sleep. Heartbroken, Mary vows never to speak to her father again and seems to really mean what she says. As the days go by and Mary’s silence continues, a desperate MacDhui pays a visit to Lori, a young woman who lives alone in the forest and is said to be a witch. Can Lori help repair the relationship between father and daughter or has too much damage been done?

Although I was already familiar with the plot, I found that this novel had far more depth than the Disney version and also a stronger religious element. There’s a lot of focus on MacDhui’s internal struggles as he tries to confront the loss of faith that has been with him since his wife died and on the efforts of Lori and the minister, Angus Peddie, to restore his belief in God and the power of love. Lori, a gentle, compassionate woman who tries to heal injured wild animals that others see as worthless, is a lovely character and reminded me a lot of Froniga in The White Witch by Elizabeth Goudge. However, I didn’t find the book overly sentimental because it’s balanced by the darker themes of loss and grief, as well as animal cruelty and its consequences for those who perpetrate it.

I’m sure younger readers will enjoy the chapters written from Thomasina’s own perspective, where she gives amusing descriptions of life in the MacDhui household, but I never really felt that I was reading a ‘children’s book’ and I think there’s enough here for readers of all ages to enjoy. Finally, without wanting to spoil too much, if you think Thomasina’s fate sounds too sad, I can assure you that her story is a happier one than you might expect.