The Kitchen Cat, and other Tales

by Amy Walton

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Pages: 34

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About this book

Ruth Lorimer has a nursery full of toys, but the gloomy London house offers little of the companionship she wants. Her father is absorbed in his papers, and Nurse Smith finds make-believe difficult. When a thin grey cat appears on the stairs, Ruth welcomes a living friend who answers her attention with a purr. Nurse, however, considers the kitchen cat an unsuitable visitor to the rooms above.

Amy Walton's collection of English children's tales opens with this small domestic conflict, giving a child's loneliness the weight that the adults around her fail to recognise. Ruth's efforts to explain her attachment bring her father into a closer conversation with her. The title story offers readers a portrait of childhood shaped by household rules, material comfort and the need to be heard, with an ordinary animal at the centre of its emotional life.