I got Paul Gallico's 'Jennie' a few years back, because the story looked beautiful, but somehow never got around to reading it. I finally decided a couple of days back that I should take it down from the bookshelf and give it the love it deserved. In Franz Kafka's 'Metamorphosis', a man gets up in the morning and discovers that he has been transformed into a giant bug. What happens to him and how he handles that transformation forms the rest of the story. It is dark and bleak. Kafka seems to hav...

I kid you not, I was about to give this a 5 stars rating. This book is has a ton of great things, so let me list all the good:- This book is about cats- This book is about a boy who turned to cat (my dream omg)! - For such an imaginative book this has very realistic characters- Almost all the facts about cat in this book are true. The writer clearly has done an amazing job on researching cats.- This book is so relaxing even though the story is action packed. The pace is slow but in a relaxing an...

This is definitely one of 'THOSE' books. Of course you know what I mean. The special books. The stand-out books. Those that deserve to be read and loved and cherished and sought after both when you're a kid and an adult, in any and every century. Just because they tell the truth. Nowadays, kids don't read as much as I did when I was growing up. Movies, as well as electronic gadgets, have pretty much replaced that incredible joy of just diving deep into the world of a book. I've heard kids say th...

I never read THE ABANDONED as a child. I'd never even heard of it. But I trust the NYRB to reprint only the best of the best, and that trust paid off. I felt nostalgic as I read THE ABANDONED, because it has that timeless quality of the other great books of children's literature. I knew the rhythm of it. And honestly, I can't wait to read this one to my niece and nephew when they're a year or two older. The text was just begging for me to read it aloud.THE ABANDONED is the story of Peter, a youn...

This is the best book about a cat that I have ever read. It's about a little, lonely English boy named Peter who is 8 years old. He has a Scotch nanny who he dearly loves and a distant socialite mother who pays him no attention. He longs for a cat of his own, but his mother can't be bothered with such things. He's hit by a truck and goes into a coma, though he seems to be conscious of what's going on, almost like his soul is hovering close by, watching. He suddenly finds that he's turned into a ...

'Been crying since the third chapter - just one of the most touching nevels I've read. Paul Gallico, being a great cat-lover, has described their habits and behavior so well (except that part of cleaning under the chin:)) that I would feel like being a cat if I wasn't one already:)Not your average children's book - easy to understand, it is not primitive, and being so saturated with sincere emotion...Amazing how Gallico shows the world with the eyes of an eight-year boy who turns into a cat, and...

Would you believe I was named after this book. My mum read it to us as kids when I was small :)

There are some stand-out books from my childhood -- you know the ones. You can still remember the plot, the characters are like your best friends or your heroes, even though you're nearly 60. Okay, so maybe you aren't as obsessed with storytelling as I am, and you don't have these experiences. You can stop reading now, because this is one of those books, and you won't understand.I didn't own this book -- I borrowed it from the library when I was seven or eight years old. Looking back on that, I'...

This book made me cry like few others ever have. It's a beautiful story with a bittersweet ending. It speaks to the loneliness, the piteous abuse and abandonment of the forgotten, and the sweetness of home, love, and family.

Little did I know when a friend (thanks, Kendall!) loaned me this book, that I already was aware of some of the author's work. Paul Gallico was a well-known sports writer in the 1920s and 1930s, working for the New York Daily News. His sportswriting career took off when he asked to spar with Jack Dempsey (and wrote the account of how it felt to be knocked out by him!). He also wrote about catching Dizzy Dean's fastball and golfing with Bobby Jones. He retired from sports writing after selling a ...