2015 books: The Catswold Portal, 2015 book: King of the Vagabonds

[thistle_chaser]

Two books, finished neither.

The Catswold Portal by Shirley Rousseau Murphy
Rating: Okay (Hated-Disliked-Okay-Liked-Loved)

Comments

[wow_hazmat]

Hey, one of the early plot points of Charlotte's Web is that Fran's father is going to kill Wilbur for being a runt, and of course later there's the whole campaign to keep Wilbur from being slaughtered in the fall (he was born in the spring)!

I wouldn't allow a child to see or read a graphic description of animal death (or death or bloody violence in general), but being exposed to the fact that this kind of thing happens... well, it's kind of a fact of life, yanno?

[thistle_chaser]

True. I didn't think of Charlotte's Web. When I read it as a kid, it hadn't bothered me at all.

Good point!

[ext_3297406]

The first cover looks nice, too bad about its content. Like you, I want the magic or system of an invented world to make some kind of sense at least!

And I've read kid's books with mention of unwanted baby animals being drowned, before. One of my all-time favorites, Dogsbody by Dianne Wynne Jones, has the main character turned into a puppy who narrowly escapes being disposed of. The litter was unwanted because the pedigreed mother had puppies with a stray mutt, so the puppies were considered worthless, tied into a sack and literally thrown into the river. I've read another book where kittens were drowned this way in a pond- can't remember if that one was aimed at children or not though. I think it was unfortunately a common way to get rid of unwanted kittens or puppies, back when spaying and neutering wasn't done on pets.

[thistle_chaser]

Agreed! The cover was great. Unfortunately I didn't even get that in my version -- the eBook cover was just black and white text, no cat at all.

I think it was unfortunately a common way to get rid of unwanted kittens or puppies, back when spaying and neutering wasn't done on pets.

I think you're right, sadly...