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moiram's review against another edition
3.0
Not what I expected - this is a far more mature book than one might expect from the cover and sweet black-and-white illustrations. It covers quite a range of topics, including trust, truthfulness, imagination, religion, squatters, vegetarian diets - and the vocabulary is impressive.
jakegreyxx's review against another edition
2.0
Believe me when I tell you this was not at all what I was expecting when I picked it up.
I saw this book and I thought “Ooh, a cute children’s book about kittens”.
Reading books that came out in the 1970s really shows just how much things have changed. There’s no way even half the content mentioned in this book would get published today (but I’ll come back to this).
The book follows 10yo twins Pam and Tom, home at Gram’s house during a short school break. One night while watching for the hedgehogs to come eat the food they’d set out, a group of four kittens appears, right at midnight. Pam, with her wild imagination, believes the kittens are magic. Sounds exciting, right? But despite the title, the kittens are barely present throughout the book. Out of 119 pages, the kittens only come up twice, very briefly. Three times if you count the end, but they’re still only spoken about in those last few pages, not actually present.
On top of this, the plot was a little all over the place. Too many things were happening in such a short time. They're visiting an abandoned house before it gets remodelled to be an antique store, they're off to have tea and visit an almost 100yo lady who tells them about a secret room in the abandoned house, they're running around after dark to find a lost treasure and befriending a group of squatters, and somehow, in all of this, they're thinking about the kittens who seem to turn up at midnight on the dot.
I did find the topics of discussion from the children quite interesting for their age. Only four pages in they were talking about drugs, following on to the next page with a paragraph of Gram thinking about smoking. There was also a discussion (and several mentions) of atheism, a discussion about vegetarianism and veganism, "If the whole human race was wiped out, we'd be saved a powerful lot of suffering", they talked briefly about inflation and rising costs (this came up several times), almost being hit by a car and one of them saying “It’s coming jolly fast and it’s swaying. I should think it’s being driven by someone drunk.”, and a few mentions from another adult character of abuse, drug addiction, and divorce. Some of these are worse than others, of course, but keeping in mind these are discussions by 10yo kids, it doesn’t feel like it quite fits.
I saw this book and I thought “Ooh, a cute children’s book about kittens”.
Reading books that came out in the 1970s really shows just how much things have changed. There’s no way even half the content mentioned in this book would get published today (but I’ll come back to this).
The book follows 10yo twins Pam and Tom, home at Gram’s house during a short school break. One night while watching for the hedgehogs to come eat the food they’d set out, a group of four kittens appears, right at midnight. Pam, with her wild imagination, believes the kittens are magic. Sounds exciting, right? But despite the title, the kittens are barely present throughout the book. Out of 119 pages, the kittens only come up twice, very briefly. Three times if you count the end, but they’re still only spoken about in those last few pages, not actually present.
On top of this, the plot was a little all over the place. Too many things were happening in such a short time. They're visiting an abandoned house before it gets remodelled to be an antique store, they're off to have tea and visit an almost 100yo lady who tells them about a secret room in the abandoned house, they're running around after dark to find a lost treasure and befriending a group of squatters, and somehow, in all of this, they're thinking about the kittens who seem to turn up at midnight on the dot.
I did find the topics of discussion from the children quite interesting for their age. Only four pages in they were talking about drugs, following on to the next page with a paragraph of Gram thinking about smoking. There was also a discussion (and several mentions) of atheism, a discussion about vegetarianism and veganism, "If the whole human race was wiped out, we'd be saved a powerful lot of suffering", they talked briefly about inflation and rising costs (this came up several times), almost being hit by a car and one of them saying “It’s coming jolly fast and it’s swaying. I should think it’s being driven by someone drunk.”, and a few mentions from another adult character of abuse, drug addiction, and divorce. Some of these are worse than others, of course, but keeping in mind these are discussions by 10yo kids, it doesn’t feel like it quite fits.
pipfromspace's review against another edition
adventurous
emotional
relaxing
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? No
3.0
cerilouisereads's review
adventurous
lighthearted
mysterious
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Character
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? No
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
4.0
Content Warnings
Moderate: Death of parent
thearomaofbooks's review
2.0
Honestly, this book was kind of odd. There really wasn't much of a story. Reading this book made me feel very old-fashioned, despite the fact that it was published in the 70's, I felt like I was an old, old woman reading about these obnoxious modern youths. Tom and Pam annoyed me consistently, especially having to listen to their condescending explanations of how they are agnostic and atheist (at the ripe old age of twelve) and the way they had all these solutions for all of Gram's problems. I guess I basically just thought they were kind of bratty little kids. The story was odd and disjointed and the ending abrupt.
Strangest of all, this book is listed as a third Hundred and One Dalmatian book - and there is literally NO connection to that book at all, other than they are in Suffolk?? So that was also weird.
While I love Hundred and One Dalmatians, and have found some of Smith's other books to be worthwhile reading, this book really wasn't for me.
Strangest of all, this book is listed as a third Hundred and One Dalmatian book - and there is literally NO connection to that book at all, other than they are in Suffolk?? So that was also weird.
While I love Hundred and One Dalmatians, and have found some of Smith's other books to be worthwhile reading, this book really wasn't for me.
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