The Book of Happy Cats, by Jacqueline Voulet (Simon and Schuster, 1976, 76 pages,
$3.95)
The Book of Happy Cats is a
first! The first book we have found in years that one cannot find on Amazon,
perhaps because it was published in 1976 in French (but by Simon and Schuster).
We picked up this short book because we have
been reviewing primarily dog books and need to branch out a bit.
Also, there were eight cute cats on the cover.
We loved the cute recipes for cats in the back:
you can tell they were concocted by a real French chef. “For Hash a la Henry
IV,” the directions begin like this: “Mince the liver, heart and gizzard of
your Sunday chicken. Stir in a little water. . . .”
I actually picked up The Book of Happy Cats to give as a door prize for a pet class I am
teaching in a couple of weeks. Since most of my give-aways are for dogs, I
needed some cat stuff.
However, I am not sure if this is appropriate
for little cat lovers: the book opens with motherhood and birth – that’s OK –
but goes on to give advice about what to do when the litter is larger than you
have prospective cat-owners for: “Avoid the method of cotton soaked in ether:
this is slow and painful, contrary to what you may have heard. The quickest and
gentlest method is to use a container filled with water up to the brim with a
cover you screw on immediately afterward.” Hopefully that will just quickly
pass by a little mind. . . .
Other topics covered include health and feeding
(recipes tested by Lucy, Touen and William Shakespeare, of course).
And our apologies for not being able to include
a picture of the cover. If someone sends us to France, we may be able to update
it in the second edition of this review.
Second edition: Ha!
All we had to do was to google on the author’s name!
Of, if you prefer to read the original:
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