I crept cautiously out from my hiding place in the hedge and went as quietly and stealthily as I could across the dark drive up to the porch of the house where the saucer of milk showed mistily white in the dark. A little crack of yellow light was showing too because Ann had left the front door open. I crouched down by the saucer, wrapped my tail about me and with one eye on that crack of yellow light began to lap. And that milk tasted good Joe was born in an old rabbit burrow on the edge of a field. He and his four wild brothers and sisters weren't ordinary kittens at all, nor was their fierce mother, Fu the Ferocious, an ordinary mother, even though she allowed herself to be called "Fluffy" by the farmer in exchange for a daily saucer of milk. Fu couldn't bear houses and tried to teach her kittens the same, but Smoky Joe was intensely curious about humans. He wondered what sort of noises they made, and if they had claws to stick out when they were angry.And this curiosity was his undoing. Much to his fury, Smoky Joe is put ignominiously into a hatbox and carted off to the home of the little girl, Ann. But all is not bad. Ann gradually tames him and he discovers that people are quite nice, most of the time. He makes friends with Sinbad, Ann's pony, and also with Kipper, the Dog-Next-Door. He disagrees with Ann's father about the ownership of the pet canaries, but then discovers that the household is threatened by a terrible danger, and becomes the hero of the hour. This is the first of the "Smoky Joe" stories, written by a real cat-lover, and reissued to enchant a new generation of young readers.

ISBN: 0 86391 004 1
128pp Hardback
Our RRP £6.95