Product Description

In wartorn England during Hitler's Blitzkrieg, a courageous black cat named Lord Gort sets off to find her way home and find her lost master. Reissue.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #775029 in Books
• Published on: 1994-01
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Mass Market Paperback

From Publishers Weekly
In this unusual blend of fact and fiction, British involvement in WW II is viewed through the eyes of a cat; in PW 's words, "Each of these glimpses of men and women in wartime is as perfect as a pearl." Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Review
"Westall's writing has always been strong and vivid but he has rarely written as confidently as this." Times Literary Supplement

About the Author
Robert Westall was born in 1929 on Tyneside, where he grew up during the Second World War. He studied Fine Art and Sculpture, and for many years taught in schools throughout the North of England. His first novel for children, The Machine Gunners won the Carnegie Medal in 1975. He won it again in 1982 for The Scarecrow (the first writer to win the medal twice), the Smarties Prize in 1989 for Blitzcat, and the Guardian Award in 1991 for The Kingdom by the Sea. He died in 1993.

Customer Reviews

Happy to find a childhood love!
I read this book in my 5th grade class when I was a little girl. It tells the story of a forlorn black cat looking for his owner who has gone to fight in the war. This book began my love affair with WWII and enthralled me so that I can't wait to read it with the children I teach.

Interesting
There is only one word to describe this book...interesting. The author's tyle is very unique. He desplays the main character, a black cat named Lord Gort, differently than most writters of children's books would have. Unlike most animal fiction novels, you cannot read every exact thought running through the cat's mind and you tend to connect more to the human characters in the book. It is definately a weird book. It's written like a child's book: easy to read, short words, ect., but there is sex and violence in it. Also, the cat abandons her young, again unlike most children's books. This is really the type of book you'd have to read to understand. It's incredably unique. I personally think the author tried too hard to mix in the violence of the war, the passion of two lovers, the pain of a lost loved one and the nature of the feline species. I incourage you to read the book before giving it to a daughter or grandson or whatever.

Great book about WWII for cat lovers
This is an excellent novel! It sparked my interest in World War II at a young age.

It tells the story of a lost cat traveling through England during the Blitz. Much like Jack London's White Fang, Westall's cat character behaves like an actual cat, and not like a humanized version of one.

As a child, she gave me a clear window into the strange world of history. It was hard for me to relate to foreign wars before my time, but I loved cats. Seeing the war through the eyes of a cat helped me to really understand it for the first time.

Robert Westall has a very straightforward writing style. He stays somewhat detached from his characters, allowing the reader to make their own connections and judgments. I found this approach very appropriate for the story - it keeps things feeling realistic instead of seeming like a Disney TV special about a lost cat.

If you like this one, check out Robert Westall's other books about cats or World War II!