Ann's Blog

(Image Information: Black Cat,  Pixabay ) The King o' the Cats:  By Joseph Jacobs This is the story of King O' the Cats from his perspective. My name is King Tom. I am the King O' the Cats. I have not always been king, however. Once upon a time, I was known merely as Old Tom. This was back in the day when I lived with a human family. My family's name was Marlow. Nights with the Marlow family were usually quite peaceful, and the night I became king started off like all others. It was a calm evening. Mrs. Marlow and I were dozing by the fire, waiting for Mr. Marlow to come home from work. All of a sudden, Mr. Marlow came running in, appearing nervous and agitated. Naps interrupted, Mrs. Marlow and I sat up.  "Why, what is it, my dear?" The Mrs. asked her husband.  "You'll never believe it, but I must tell you! I cannot keep it to myself! I have had the oddest occurrence and I simply don't know what to think." Mrs. Marlow and I look...

(Image Information: Old Witch, Maxpixel ) The Old Witch , By Joseph Jacobs. This story is about two sisters from a poor family who encounter a witch and her wealth. One sister is kind and helpful to strangers. These strangers later help her escape and she has a happy ending. The other sister does not help anyone and thus they do not help her escape. The moral of the story is that sometimes doing good things pays off.  One thing about this story that I found interesting is the scene where the witch is trapped in the oven. This seems to be a recurring theme in witch stories, and I wonder where it originated from. I tried searching for this trope on TvTropes , but I did not find an answer. I wonder if the trope originated in one story and thus became a trope, or if it just appears in different stories because they were all at one point the same story.  A question I had about the story is why does the girl marry a rich man if she already has bags of money? Did she need ...

The King o' the Cats:  By Joseph Jacobs I loved this story so much. This is one that I will forever hold dear and hold on to for late generations. I cannot believe I had never heard it before! It's a funny and cute story about a cat and his family. I love how the author captured the cat, Old Tom's, presence and personality. I think the author must have been a cat lover, or he at least must have been around cats a lot. I like how the husband refers to the cat as "our friend" and the wife refers to him as "Old Tom here." It makes the tale even cuter to hear them speak of him as a person or respected being, as one should. Growing up, my favorite book series was Warriors, by Erin Hunter. The series was told through the perspective of cats living in the wild, and it deals with serious matters like taking care of each other, dealing with conflict, being a kind and good leader, and losing loved ones. Having loved those books so much, I think it could be fun ...