A Book of Cats and Creatures

by Ruth Manning-Sanders

A collection of folktales from around the world features wise cats, not-so-wise cats, good cats, and impish cats as well as many other kinds of unusual creatures

Genres: Fairy Tales, Fantasy

Paperback

Published April 14, 1983

About the author

Ruth Manning-Sanders, youngest daughter of an English minister, describes her childhood as “extraordinarily happy. . . with kind and understanding parents and any amount of freedom.” She read omnivorously, and she and her two sisters wrote and acted their own plays. A Shakespeare scholar at Manchester University, she later married Cornish artist George Manning-Sanders. They began married life in a horse drawn caravan, and traveled to all parts of the British Isles.
Mrs. Manning-Sanders has collected folk and fairy stories from around the world and she published more than 90 books during her lifetime.

Reviews

[Emmy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not a bad collection, but definitely one of the weakest in the series. I thought that the theme was very loose--this could have easily been a catch-all for stories that Manning-Sanders didn't know what to do with. The last two stories were more like anecdotes or punchlines than actual stories, and it seemed like they were just tacked on at the end of the collection and felt out of place.

[Janelle]

Original review - Dnf. There were issues with the narrator of the audiobook I was listening to.

Additional note - the edition I listened to was produced by the Royal National Institute for the Blind, London, in 2005. Very few Goodreaders would have access to this edition because it was created specifically and solely for readers with a print disability (and obviously with the full permission of the copyright owners). It is not available to the wider public. The narrator would have been a volunteer, and so while there were issues with the narration, I don’t wish to criticise their hard work.

[Ashley Lambert-Maberly · Rating 4 out of 5]

All her books are splendid, I have no favourites really. The illustrations are perfectly suited, and I appreciate how she pulls her tales from several different cultures. I adored these as a child, and have read them to my children, and they hold up well.

(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = really enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.)