by Lore Segal

illustrated by Paul O. Zelinsky
Back in print:
A New York Times
Best Illustrated Book,
and a wonderfully written story!

“Mrs. Lovewright was a chilly person.

When it got night outside, she closed her door and made herself a fire; then she took off her shoes and put her feet up on the stool and that's when Mrs Lovewright knew that there was something and she didn't have it...”

Mrs. Lovewright wanted coziness. She needed a cat, a cute cat that would sit on her lap and purr. She would name it Purrly. What happened when Dylan the delivery boy brought her a kitten, and the kitten just wouldn't go along?

You'll recognize truth-to-nature and larger truths, too, in the ensuing struggle between an all-too-human Mrs. Lovewright and her willful pet. “Is it possible,” asked The New York Times, “for a story so brief, so successful, so persuasive and endearing as this one to be without its mythic resonances? Surely not!”