Jennie

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I liked Jennie. I found Jennie the cat delightful and the descriptions and "whys" behind cat behavior whimsical and accurate. The crew aboard the Countess were funny and likable. In the 1950s, Gallico spent time in Liechtenstein, where he wrote Ludmila, the retelling of a local legend. [6] Gallico once confessed to New York magazine: "I'm a rotten novelist. I'm not even literary. I just like to tell stories and all my books tell stories.... If I had lived 2,000 years ago I'd be going around to caves, and I'd say, 'Can I come in? I'm hungry. I'd like some supper. In exchange, I'll tell you a story. Once upon a time there were two apes.' And I'd tell them a story about two cavemen." [3] During his time in Salcombe, Gallico serialised an account of the sinking of the MV Princess Victoria, the ferry that plied between Larne and Stranraer, an event which left only 44 out of 179 surviving. It was his habit, at this time, to wander in his garden dictating to his assistant Mel Menzies, who then typed the manuscript in the evening, ready for inclusion in the newspaper. Peter is a typical boy really: he yearns for his mother’s affection, adores Nanny despite her hatred of cats and wants what he can’t have. His adoration for cats serves him in good stead in the end, making him more than willing to learn from Jennie. His admiration of her, while realising her faults, makes him a great partner to her, especially as he tries to convince her that humans aren’t that bad. As the story progresses, he becomes more assertive and leader like, and his affection for Jennie becomes almost love. There are moments when I doubt this, especially where a certain Lulu is concerned, but in terms of life lessons, bravery and cat perspectives, Peter has it all.

However, I probably would have survived -- we are still requiring grade-school children to read Where the Red Fern Grows, aren't we? -- and I think I would let young children read this book as long as someone was there to spend a lot of time answering questions and drying tears and offering lots of chocolate. Twas the Night Before Christmas", short story dramatized as Attraction 66 of NBC's radio series Radio City Playhouse Paul William Gallico (July 26, 1897 – July 15, 1976) was an American novelist and short story and sports writer. [1] Many of his works were adapted for motion pictures. He is perhaps best remembered for The Snow Goose, his most critically successful book, for the novel The Poseidon Adventure, primarily through the 1972 film adaptation, and for four novels about the beloved character of Mrs. Harris. Gallico, Paul (1953). "The savage beast in us". In Birmingham, Frederic A. (ed.). The girls from Esquire. London: Arthur Barker. pp.249–255. His short story "The Man Who Hated People" was reworked into an unpublished short story "The Seven Souls of Clement O'Reilly", adapted into the movie Lili (1953) and later staged as the musical Carnival! (1961). The film Lili is a poignant, whimsical fairy tale, the story of an orphaned waif, a naïve young woman whose fate is thrown in with that of a traveling carnival and its performers, a lothario magician and an embittered puppeteer. In 1954, Gallico published the novella The Love of Seven Dolls, based on "The Man Who Hated People". The versions, while differing, share a core theme surrounding the girl and the puppeteer. The puppeteer, communicating with Lili through his puppets as a surrogate voice, develops a vehicle whereby each of them can freely express their inner pain and anguished emotions.

Peter is a little 8-year-old boy who loves cats. He lives with his mother and father in London. His father is gone a good deal, being in the military, and his mother is lonely and goes out with her friends a lot, leaving Peter with his "Scotch nanny." Peter is lonely, too, but his parents seem unaware. All he wants is a little kitten to have something to love. Paul Gallico (1897 – 1976) was a lover of cats and wrote other stories and collections of poems about them. His knowledge is poured into this novel, and it will make you look at cats in a whole new way. His observations of how they feel and act in certain situations eg. When in doubt – Wash!’ are spot on. Just read this wonderful story then watch your own cat to see what I mean. a b c d Ivins, Molly, " Paul Gallico, Sportswriter And Author, Is Dead at 78", The New York Times, July 17, 1976. Retrieved Oct. 25, 2020.

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 have been an intense, serious person, and his imagination seems to have flown into dark alleys. In contrast, Paul Gallico seems to have been a happy person. Paul Gallico wonders what will happen, if instead of something dark and bleak like a giant bug, a human being gets transformed into something adorable, like a cat. What happens then? A beautiful book called 'Jennie' happens. Unlike other stories that grab you around the throat and pull you in, Jennie never does that. Although there are moments of danger, from falling off ships and being pursued by dogs, there isn’t a lot of action. This is more of an adventure: our hero suddenly finding himself as a cat and must learn how to fend for himself. It is more of a personal journey as Peter grows up during its course and Jennie learns to value human company again. Whether children of the modern age would even think of reading this I don’t know, but I for one enjoyed the simple pacing that motors along, with the odd surprise along the way. I began to lose some of my want of reading this book when Peter and Jennie return to Peter’s home, and I think this might be a feeling of the author losing ideas yet wanting to continue. The ending is incredibly bitter-sweet, the most bitter-sweet I’ve ever found in a story. I didn’t understand this when I was younger, but I do now. There could be no other ending to this tale that was so heart wrenchingly sweet.

He was a first-class fencer, and a keen deep-sea fisherman. He was married four times, and had several children. I loved 'Jennie'. Peter's story was fascinating. But my favourite character in the book was Jennie. Jennie is one of coolest, most stylish, awesome cats in literature. I loved her. Though I loved the whole book, my favourite part of the book was the middle part which runs to around six chapters in which Jennie and Peter board a ship and go to Glasgow. The ship has got a motley crew who are hilarious and inefficient (the captain hates sailing, one of the sailors writes cowboy stories, another sailor is big and intimidating but he likes doing embroideries), but the crew members are warm, affectionate and beautiful in surprising ways. The way they take in Jennie and Peter and the hilarious, wonderful adventures that happen during the course of the trip is beautiful to read. I also loved the parts where Jennie inducts Peter into the life of a cat and teaches him survival skills. Paul Gallico's descriptions of cats and their lives is quite detailed and it looks like they were based on real observations. He had twenty three cats at home and it looks like that gave him a lot of opportunities to observe cats and their ways. Towards the end of the book, I thought that something heartbreaking would happen - either Peter or Jennie would die, or Peter would become a human being again and that would be the end of their friendship. But the author springs up a third ending which was very surprising. I cried after I read the ending. All in all, Jennie is a hidden gem. The cat perspective is wonderful, it is a true adventure filled with some very adult themes, Peter and Jennie are an absolute joy of a double act, the pacing matches the simplicity felt and the descriptions are really grounded in reality. I did lose my thread with the story when it became too reflective, the ending really gave me mixed feelings, sometimes there are over-descriptions and I really don’t get Lulu. However, I’m sure I will continue to reread and enjoy this book. Fortunately, there is nothing saccharine about THE ABANDONED. Paul Gallico truly explores what it would be like to be a cat living in the wild, with no guaranteed source of food or shelter. The fantastic is needed to make the book work, but it's muted. The ending is quite wrenching and bittersweet, perhaps even moreso than THE VELVETEEN RABBIT. But I think all but the most sensitive kids can handle it. And any kid who loves stories about animals will devour THE ABANDONED. Even at twenty three, I loved it. Amazingly, Gallico was born in America and spent most of his life there. He did travel, and lived outside the US from 1950 until his death in 1976, but still. He's got the Queen's English down pat and his London is authentic enough to fool an Englishman. I assumed he was English until I finished the book and looked up information about its history.

Holtzman, Jerome (May 6, 1974). "The Gallico Adventure". New York. Vol.7, no.18. pp.34–45. OCLC 1760010. Such a beautiful, simple, and poignant story, where all of the characters are such a joy to read about and sympathize with... What I found most delightful about "Jennie" is the quality of its work with human feelings. Among the most valuable lessons of childhood are how to navigate our feelings and our relationships. "Jennie" offers memorable characters and situations which can help children name and understand their feelings and reflect on what to do with them in their words, behavior and relationships. (J K Rowling also excels at this; she has said her favorite book growing up was Gallico's "Manxmouse.") By the same token and means, it invites reflection into adults' inner ecology. If you have any discomfort in your emotional life or relationships with friends or family, "Jennie" will stir it up for you somewhere along the way.

About Paul Gallico

This book is no longer in print in either the US or the UK, However, second-hand editions are reasonable easy to find - and it is not difficult to find quite nice first editions.

I love cats more than anything. My tortie, Tali, is the light of my life. Books about animals are easy wins with me. In 1937, in Gallico's "Farewell to Sport" he stated, "For all her occasional beauty and unquestioned courage, there has always been something faintly ridiculous about the big-time lady athletes." The Silent Miaow (1964) purports to be a guide written by a cat, "translated from the feline", on how to obtain, captivate, and dominate a human family. Illustrated with photographs by Suzanne Szasz, it is considered a classic by cat lovers. Other Gallico cat books include Jennie (1950) (American title The Abandoned), Thomasina, the Cat Who Thought She Was God (1957), filmed in 1964 by the Walt Disney Studios as The Three Lives of Thomasina (which was very popular in the former USSR in the early 1990s, inspiring the Russian remake Bezumnaya Lori), and Honorable Cat (1972), a book of poetry and essays about cats. On December 25, 1949, Gallico's short story "'Twas the Night Before Christmas" was dramatized as Attraction 66 of the NBC radio series Radio City Playhouse. It tells the humorous tale of a New York newspaper reporter and a photographer sent on a Christmas Eve wild goose chase by their publisher's wife for two goats harnessed to a little red wagon, which she intends to give her nephews for Christmas. During a night-long search fueled by a few drinks along the way, the reporter and photographer run across the evening's most dramatic news stories, which they must supposedly ignore in favor of the chore set out by their publisher's wife. The radio dramatization remains very popular with Old Time Radio fans and is featured each year on Sirius XM Radio Classics. The Love of Seven Dolls (1954 - adapted from his short story "The Man Who Hated People" (1950) after the success of the 1953 movie "Lili" adapted from the same story - you might know the song "Hi Lili Hi Lo" from that movie)

Almost all the facts about cat in this book are true. The writer clearly has done an amazing job on researching cats. In 1955, Gallico took an automobile tour of the United States, traveling some 10,000 miles, sponsored by Reader's Digest. [9] He wrote that "it had been almost twenty years since I had traveled extensively through my own country and the changes brought about by two decades would thus stand out." [9] Several stories resulted. The Snow Goose was published in 1941 in The Saturday Evening Post and won the O. Henry Award for short stories in 1941. Critic Robert van Gelder called it "perhaps the most sentimental story that ever has achieved the dignity of a Borzoi [prestige imprint of publisher Knopf] imprint. It is a timeless legend that makes use of every timeless appeal that could be crowded into it." [4] A public library puts it on a list of "tearjerkers." Gallico made no apologies, saying that "in the contest between sentiment and 'slime,' 'sentiment' remains so far out in front, as it always has and always will among ordinary humans that the calamity-howlers and porn merchants have to increase the decibels of their lamentations, the hideousness of their violence and the mountainous piles of their filth to keep in the race at all." [5] A lengthy extract of this book can be found in a nice book called The Personality of the Cat, published by Crown in the US in 1958..