Gobbolino, the Witch's Cat - Ursula Moray Williams > Reviews > Gobbolino the Witch's Cat

Author's product rating:   

Would you listen to it again?	Absolutely
Story	Good
Characters	Satisfactory
Listenability	Once you start it, you won't be able to switch it off!

Advantages:	sweet, classic, cat - based story of hope
Disadvantages:	a little quaint, with some less - than - fascinating characters

Recommend to potential buyers:

yes

Full review

Somewhere on the ether that is Ciao, there lurks a Sootica.P.Monster (we like her). Now, when it comes to the Pocket Monsterishness, I couldn't possibly comment. But I DO know where the inspiration for Sootica came from... evidently we grew up with at least one book in common, and that book was Gobbolino the Witch's Cat.

Gobbolino is a kitten who understands just what it's like to feel like you were born in the wrong place at the wrong time. The son of Grimalkin, a sleek, black Witch's cat, and the brother of Sootica, a bright and arrogant inky-black kitten with a yen to "ride a broomstick and turn mice into frogs and frogs into guinea pigs" like her mother, Gobbolino knows in his heart that it's better to be good, and he's rather be a Kitchen Cat, snuggled warm by a fire with a loving family. To make matters worse, he doesn't even LOOK like a Witch's cat, with one white paw and a definite hint of tabby in his fur... not to mention big blue peepers unlike his green-eyed family! Naturally, no witch will take a second glance at him, so he struggles along miserably, in disgrace, until one day he wakes up to find he has been abandoned. Now all alone in the world, he sets out to find himself the home he dreams of, having adventures along the way...

First published in 1942, Gobbolino the Witch's Cat reflects the period in which it was written and published, but stays a very readable classic because of its simple, universal message about belonging. There is much that seems quaint and old-fashioned now, such as the orphanage the kitten stumbles across, serving its thin, grey, gruel, and the Lord Mayor's coach and horses. But many of these elements are common and familiar in children's books even now: the fact that Gobbolino can talk and do some pretty funny magic ("Gobbolino had only to turn himself into a piece of Stilton cheese and wait outside the mousehole"), nasty little magical creatures like hobgoblins, and the repetitive, episodic structure that we've almost come to depend on... each stage along the journey becomes more outlandish, from the farmer and his wife to the orphanage, then the Lord Mayor, then the sea witch and the Princess and the Tower, getting bigger and more dramatic until you know that somewhere towards the last chapter Gobbolino surely must find the humble roots and comforts he craves. And indeed, looking at the last few chapter titles you will see what I mean...

What really does date the book, however, and is part of its charm in my opinion, is its language. The formality of the English used is quite unusual, akin perhaps to that perennial Key Stage 1 (that's Year 1 and 2 in school) favourite, Jill Tomlinson's The Owl Who Was Afraid of the Dark (indeed, Gobbolino is not unlike Plop, although somewhat more annoyingly virtuous!). It is not a long book, about 150 pages of large print, but there are some longer and more complex sentences, with slightly formal structure, so that whilst reading the words might not be too difficult for an able child, comprehension might be a tad laboured. For example: "Presently he could distinguish four grey horses driven at a furious speed..." That's not a sentence I could imagine every child at the age to which I feel this is pitched, around 6 or 7, being able to read for themselves. However, this is a pleasure to read aloud, and of course if you read it to your child or your class and they develop a fondness for it, later they will be able to read it for themselves, having been introduced to a range of wonderful vocabulary and, just as crucially, important concepts about the way the world is. The great thing about children's books is that they have great subtlety and sensitivity when approached by children, but they can have a very clear, discernable message without that being seen as a weakness. Gobbolino has a lot to say about knowing who you are, trusting yourself, not being afraid to stand out and having the courage to be brave and good when it would be easy not to be- and when everybody's pointing the finger at you and making assumptions about who you are. Yes, sometimes Gobbolino's saintliness is a little irritating (and Sootica's arch intelligence terribly appealing: "Oh, pooh! I am far cleverer than my mistress the witch!") but there are some important ideas there coming in loud and clear.

Aside from the angelic Gobbolino and the sly Sootica, there are some other interesting and accessible characters that crop up. Being an episodic narrative, it gives the author scope to introduce a range of characters that stay long enough to be engaging, but not so long that they annoy, and Moray Williams uses that on occasion. However, it does eventually seem like people start to fit into two categories, the screeching hag and the kindly gentleman... Indeed, hardly any of the female characters in the book are particularly pleasant (unless they are little girls), being cruel witches, or a cat-hating Mayoress, or a stern nurse or nasty cook... Having said that, the male characters are kind but ineffectual, bowing to the inevitable when Gobbolino is found out as a witch's cat... So this book is not that strong on characterisation. However, it does mostly make up for this with some great twists and turns in the plot, and some very unusual settings and jobs for Gobbolino, from ship's cat to Toby in the Punch and Judy show!

As for the age... I had this read to me when I was 3 or 4, around nursery age, and I think that's a good time to start acquainting children with it, especially, if, like me, they have something of a feline fixation. To read it by themselves, I would say you're looking at an advanced Year 4 and above (around 8 years old), although it may be difficult to involve older children, especially boys, in the story. (Much as I want to say that boys and girls read the same books, my experience in schools so far tells me otherwise!). That's where an early familiarity of it may help. Reading together and reading alone are rendered infinitely more rewarding by the cute, sketchy illustrations, which serve as a great springboard for comprehension of the text, providing, as they do, little clues into the narrative. It's a worthwhile book to have as a favourite growing up, not just for the educational values of good literacy and an awareness of issues in the world, but because it's incredibly imaginative and at times a cracking adventure story! Whether adults could come to it with the same fondness, I couldn't say, not having approached it from that perspective... I'd guess you could like it, but I'm not sure if you'd love it, unless it reminded you of some of your other favourites.

In rating this, I felt four stars was fair. This is one of my fondest childhood reading memories, but trying to look at it objectively, without my nostalgia goggles, I can see that its quaintness and some of its slightly weak characterisation stop it from being quite the five star joy it could be- possibly the best way to describe it is in the blurb: "charming". Having said that, it's still well worth a look, and one that, if you can interest your children in it, will remain a great favourite, having that friendly feeling and imaginative spark that classics seem to have hovering around them as an intangible, invisible sparkle in the air... just because you can't see it, doesn't mean it's not there.

Available published by Puffin for its Young Puffin section, priced at £4.99 (ISBN 0-14-030239-5). www.penguin.com It has a pretty yellow and blue cover in this incarnation!

So have fun, read away, and thanks for reading this!

Alex
xxx

PS "Couldn't put it down" rating simply refers to the fact that I think children would be very engaged, and would want to read it again. And since I haven't read Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse recently enough to remember, I can't compare it to other work by Moray Williams.