“Katie the kitten, a small tiger cat,
Is asleep in the hall, all curled in a hat.”

Thus began the little Golden Book seen in the Featured photo that David already owned when our neighbor’s cat had a litter of five kittens and we were gifted a cute little female. David was nearly two and named his new pet “Kate”. She was feisty and fun, very involved with the household and a wonderful companion for the children.

It was Jeffrey who absolutely adored her. His body stiffened in his high chair when she’d pass by. His first word was “kitty-cat”. He hounded her all day. He never let her out of his sight.

We let her play outside. She was a good hunter and brought us the fruits of her hunt; birds, chipmunks. I found them, dead or alive, on my porch. She came when called by the shake of her treats box.

She grew old and sick. Though we got her the best care we could, she died the night David came home for Spring Break, his freshman year at Stanford. She seemed to wait for his return. Jeffrey could not be consoled.

He wailed to me, “She was the only one in the family who never yelled at me. If I was unhappy, I would bury my face in her fur. What will I do now?” He felt a bit guilty that he was more grief-stricken by Kate’s death than by that of his beloved grandfather’s. I explained that he saw Kate more often and shouldn’t feel guilty about that.

I put together an album of photos of him with his cat, taken through the years, as a keepsake to remember her. At the very front was the Golden Book, “Katie the Kitten”, that had given his wondrous pet her name.

 

I love to shop local and support the small businesses that still exist in my community, but the first consideration is always parking.
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Two children’s books — one from the middle of the 19th Century, the other from the end of the 20th, have a special place in my heart, for different reasons. One was a gift to my grandmother from her mother; the other I read to my daughter almost a hundred years later.

My favorite children’s book is titled “Frog Medicine”, published in 1996 by Scholastic, and no doubt forgotten, judging by its four dollar price on EBay. Although beloved in our family, we have lost our copy. It tells the story of a ten-year old boy who keeps putting off writing a book report. His teacher selects “Frog Medicine” for him. He’s not impressed, and throws it in the closet. He awakens the day before it’s due to see that his feet have morphed into those of a frog, and his doctor recommends a visit to a practitioner of frog medicine.  Not surprisingly, this practitioner is a frog who takes our student on a ride through a non-threatening but Dante-esque Canto in a very wet underworld before it all ends happily ever after.

I remember little of the plot details, which ultimately don’t matter. The charm of the book, to me, is captured perfectly in the picture on the cover where the boy, his cat, and the frog doc are all captured perfectly, each with different expressions on their faces. To see all the art depicting this underworld, you’ll have to spring for the four dollars (free shipping!) and send it to EBay. This book is now enshrined in our family lore, although I cannot honestly say that our children were ever as captivated as their parents were, and still remain by this piece of children’s literature.

But I want to share another book which we all know to one degree or another. I have not read all of it, although I’ve seen a film version by Sacramento’s own Greta Gerwig.

I suspect that most women of our generation (my wife, certainly) spent hours reading and re-reading Louisa May Alcott’s “Little Women” in their childhood. I did not, (spending my time reading the Hardy Boys and other literary classics instead.)  I was entranced, however, when I saw Gerwig’s rendition when I watched it two years ago — entranced enough so that I went looking for an old copy that I knew was hidden somewhere in our house, its two volumes tied together with twine. And there in the top shelf of a secretary (with glass doors and books behind the glass) was the copy I was looking for. Its two green volumes were tied together. The first volume had glued to it a printed label with my great grandmother’s name, which continued, “from” and then in pencil, “Mama.” There’s also a penciled name on the next page that I don’t recognize, and glued to that page is a printed picture titled “Alcott House, Concord, Mass.” I got excited looking at the title page which at the bottom said, Boston Roberts Brothers 1869; and turning the page I saw a sentence attesting to the fact that it was “entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1868, by Louisa M Alcott.”

The second of the two books, also in a green cover, looked nearly identical, but the title page also says “Part Second” and a date, 1870, is at the bottom of the page.

Significantly, neither volume (or “Part”) says anything about what printing or “impression” I had in my hand. We have a few old books, but all say what edition they are, or list several copyright dates. First editions, I know, don’t always say so. Perhaps it’s tempting fate or exhibiting two much hubris for an author or publisher to label a book as a “first edition.” In any event, a non-exhaustive internet search showed other books that looked exactly like the one in our house, complete with the same “Alcott House” pictured glued inside, although the one I saw online looked in better shape. The conclusion I draw from this is that I was holding in my hand a genuine first edition of this American classic. In perfect shape, on sale for $25,000. In my case, no doubt worth far less. But a wonderful discovery nevertheless, and a cultural link to the woman in the wedding dress I have pictured from 1920 hanging on our bedroom wall as reported in my earlier story, “A Picture, a Mirror, and a Copper Plate.”

Having enjoyed Greta Gerwig’s film adaptation, maybe I’ll read the book. But in deference to the age of my copy, I think I’ll get a modern printing. Surely it must be out of copyright and not too expensive.

The Indoor Noisy Book by Margaret Wise Brown was written in 1942. I received a hardcover copy of it in the 1950s. This  book, a colorfully illustrated story of the little dog Muffin who has a cold and must stay inside to rest,  was a gift from my across-the-street neighbor John.

John was a bit younger than I was, but we were constant companions. We spent many happy hours playing together in his rumpus room, or on the swings in his backyard, or spellbound in front of the TV when “The Mickey Mouse Club” came on. We pretended to be our personal favorites on the show: Karen and Cubby.

We went to each other’s birthday parties, and one year, he gave me a copy of  The Indoor Noisy Book. He had written: “To Risa from John” inside with a crayon. The slanted leg on the “R” was doing a high kick and the “s” was backwards. We were around 4 years old.

At my birthday party. John is standing next to me in those crazy striped pants.

The book lives up to its title: all the sounds in and around the household, from footsteps coming up the stairs, to the noises in the kitchen, to the telephone ringing, and the rain turning into sleet and falling on the roof are spelled out and illustrated. The main characters wear old-fashioned clothes and they live in a fancy house with a cook.

There is some guesswork involved at the end, with very silly suggestions about who exactly was coming up the stairs to see Muffin. I loved that book. I kept it in the room my sister and I shared far beyond the time when it was age appropriate.

 

John moved away when we were still quite young, and beside the black and white birthday party photos of a strawberry blond boy squinting into the sun, that dear boy who was really kind of shy, the book was the only memento I had to remember him by. As I recall, his family came back to Richmond for a visit once or twice. We were shy around each other then, having lost the every-dayness of our friendship.

 

My family moved several years later, and I took the book with me.
I moved out of my parents’ house when I was seventeen, and I packed the book along with my special letters and cards. It survived several moves after that, and had a spot on our bookshelf in the first little apartment my husband and I lived in after we got married.

Eventually, I read this book to my three children, who still say, “The little dog Muffin has a cold,” when they or their children are sick– even now that they are all grown up.

 

But the book was lost, along with everything else, when our house burned to the ground in the fire of 1991. It may not have been the first thing I mourned, but I did feel the loss. The fire happened shortly before my 40th birthday, and if there was ever a symbol of my youth . . . this was it. A silly, sweet child’s book–with my name and a backwards “s” inscribed in crayon by my best childhood friend. Treasures come in all sizes, and this one was huge–at least to me.

Several years ago, my daughter located a copy of the book on eBay and surprised me with it on Christmas.
I laughed, I cried, I read it out loud through my tears. We all loved that book.

The link to my girlhood was restored–and it made me as happy as the little dog Muffin, when he could go outside again to listen to the birds and the trucks.