The Further Adventures Of Gobbolino And The Little Wooden Horse

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Alas! I was born too early. In my own childhood I never knew Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse or Gobbolino the Witch’s Cat. But both those heroes — each in his separate book — were there for my daughter when she was little. We loved them dearly and followed their adventures with breathless attention.

Oddly Gobbolino’s great ambition since kittenhood was not to be a witch’s cat (and, truly he was no good at the black arts, anyway). He wanted only to be like other cats: an ordinary kitchen cat by a warm, friendly hearth, with a saucer of milk. But how difficult to achieve! Once, as a ship’s cat at the very height of a storm whipped up by a sea witch, he refused just to save his own skin. Instead, he dared to counter-spell the witch ("Fiddlesticks to you, ma’am!") and so saved the ship and all its crew. But then the crew, in fear, turned against him and rejected him. He was homeless again. What little witchcraft he knew let him down.

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