Jennie (Collins Modern Classics)

Product Information

This 3rd wave of Penguins has a captivating design, making this brilliant book a real treasure for enthusiasts and collectors alike. 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! I first read Paul Gallico’s delightful (and sobbingly heart-aching) book about a little boy who finds himself changed into a cat, when I was probably at target age 8-11, I think. I found and used it once before for an earlier post on something or other, but this is the one it is perfectly designed for.

Jennie" is of its era - the then-recent memory of World War II affects both setting and sentiment (Gallico was a war reporter from 1943-1946), and a few antique notions of masculine and feminine roles surface briefly - but the dated elements are unobtrusive and do not mar the work. Eventually he challenges a bully tom cat to a death fight to save Jennie from being “claimed” by him. The poignancy of all three of these stories hits the same achy spot in my heart, but I had no idea until I reread it, that for ten-year-old-me, Jennie had been the foundation, the model, the prototype, even the archetype for this kind of heartbreaking, bittersweet story. As a cat he meets with an angry tom who beats him to near death then he is rescued and nursed back to health by Jennie, another cat. You can still remember the plot, the characters are like your best friends or your heroes, even though you're nearly 60.We use cookies to personalise content and ads, to provide social media features and to analyse our traffic. This book is an excellent friend, lover, counselor and teacher to strick with through all your life.

Gallico's best book about cats is still The Silent Miaow, but this one I can recommend for the fabulous northbound voyage of the Glasgow Queen, when Peter and Jenny sign on as ship's cats. Kafka seems to have been an intense, serious person, and his imagination seems to have flown into dark alleys.I got Paul Gallico's 'Jennie' a few years back, because the story looked beautiful, but somehow never got around to reading it.