SOLVED. children's or YA, read in 60s, cat lady breaks kittens neck to end suffering [s]

[Rafi]

This is a book that has haunted me for going on 50 years. The only thing I remember is a scene where 2 policemen, or some kind of authority, went to the apartment or house of a woman with a lot of cats. One of them stepped on a kitten, fatally injuring it. The woman picked it up and broke its neck to put it out of pain.

I remember nothing else! This scene was clearly very upsetting to me, and lodged itself in my brain. I'd like to find the book and read it, in hopes that putting this nightmare scene in context will clear this memory, or at least make it less horrifying to me.

It was sometime in the mid to late 60s that I read it. Don't recall if it was an old or new looking book at that time. I think it was older juvenile fiction, possibly YA.

I hope this rings a bell with someone!

[Eavan]

Oh my god, I know this book! It's Like This, Cat, by Emily Cheney Neville. That scene haunted me as well.

[Rafi]

ah thank you! Yes, this must be it! How many books in the 1960s would have such a scene? lol

[Rafi]

and here you can read it free online: http://digital.library.upenn.edu/wome...