Throwback Thursdays: Time Cat

When I was a kid, one of my favorite books was called Time Cat, by Lloyd Alexander, who’s much better known for series like The Prydain Chronicles and The Vesper Holly Adventures. At the time, I didn’t have a cat, and to make up for it, I read every book about cats that I could get my hands on. (I also did the same with books about dragons, but unfortunately, that never resulted in a pet dragon for me.) Alexander’s Time Cat, which told the story of a magical time-traveling cat and his human, set the standard for my future pet. After reading and re-reading this book, I dreamed of one day having a genius cat who could talk to me and take me on adventures.

With this kind of example, it’s a wonder I was never disappointed by the actual cat I got in high school, who can best be described as a lazy, dumb glutton (I say this with great fondness). There’s absolutely nothing about my cat that’s reminiscent of the cat of Time Cat, except perhaps for his habit of disappearing from a room for hours at a time (to later be found curled up on my favorite chair, of course). Recently, as fall saunters into my city, my cat’s been hiding more and more often, looking for a warmer place to nap, and though I haven’t picked up Time Cat in years, it reminded me of the way that cat would disappear—to go on adventures, of course, not anything as mundane as napping.

So then I reread the book, obviously.