Product Description

She made her way down the cliff, and on to the beach. At the edge of the waves, she stopped, shaking her wet paws. She knew that somewhere ahead was her person, but far, far away. She miaowed plaintively; stood staring at the moving blur of uncrossable sea.

She led the way to safety, out of the blazing hell of blitzed Coventry. People touched her for luck; feared her as an omen of disaster. Wherever she went, she changed lives....

From her beginning to her end she never wavered.

She was the Blitzcat.

''Westall's writing has always been strong and vivid but he has rarely written as confidently as this.'' Times Literary Supplement

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #11046 in Books
• Published on: 2002-02-08
• Original language: English
• Binding: Paperback
• 240 pages

Review
"Westall's writing has always been strong and vivid but he has rarely written as confidently as this." Times Literary Supplement

About the Author
Robert Westall was born in 1929 on Tyneside, where he grew up during the Second World War. He studied Fine Art and Sculpture, and for many years taught in schools throughout the North of England. His first novel for children, The Machine Gunners won the Carnegie Medal in 1975. He won it again in 1982 for The Scarecrow (the first writer to win the medal twice), the Smarties Prize in 1989 for Blitzcat, and the Guardian Award in 1991 for The Kingdom by the Sea. He died in 1993.

Customer Reviews

Probably Westall's best, but I'm prepared to discuss!!!
I never tire of recommending Westall to readers (and the parents of readers), he is one of my favourite authors for children, and this is probably his best book - although I can't actually think of a BAD one! One of his best qualities is that he never talks down to his audience. This particular book is probably appropriate for age 11+, as there is a little bit of sex in it, and it does deal with adult emotions of all kinds, but he has written for much younger kids too, and his touch is always sure. Blitzcat gives children the feeling of being trusted with grown-up material, without boring or disturbing them.

The story is told in episodic form, each encounter that the cat has being a discrete tale, complete in itself, but adding up to a deeply satisfying whole.(It would make a great TV series! - Come on, some scriptwriter somewhere!!) Three of Westall's favourite things are ghosts (he writes AMAZINGLY good ghost stories), cats, and the World War II setting, and here he manages to use 2 out of 3!! He explores "psi-trailing", the term given to the way cats have been known to find their owners again after being separated, in some cases by hundreds of miles. Here the cat sets off to look for her "special person", and all along the way she touches the lives of others, from the miserable, lonely housewife, to two farmers trying to rescue their horses from the hell of the firebombing of Coventry, from the scared young men facing nightly anti-aircraft fire in their bomber to the doomed UXB squad. It's very exciting, deeply moving in parts, reads aloud brilliantly, and is a children's classic.

A wonderful book
This book is truely unique. Robert Westall has managed to write a book with an animal as it's main characture without resorting to 'cutie-pie' Disneyesque characterization. The cat IS a cat; all the luck (good or bad) that follows her is purely down to human interpretation of events.

It brings to life the horror of Coventry during the blitz, the fear in flying bombers over Germany, and the terror of being shot down. It shows human nature, how people in times of hardship have to have an explanation for what's happening. It also gives hope.

The story is simple. Blitzcat (real name Lord Gort, although its a she) looses her owner; he's gone to fly Blenheims. She can sense him, and sets off to find him. She goes from Dover to north Norfolk to Coventry, at one point even gets shot down over Germany and then rescued from Portugal.

This is not just a children's book, Adults will enjoy every single word too.

Long live Lord Gort!
Lord Gort is a female black cat, growing up in WWII England. She is quite happy in lazing in and around the house of her owner, until the young man disappears to fulfil his duties of war. Reluctantly, she leaves the suddenly deserted home and begins her search for her companion, made possible through psi-tracking: a debatable and paranormal quality that enables cats to find their owners over hundreds of miles. Her journey leads her all over the country, living off of kills, corned beef and housing up with various surprised humans along the way.

The striking quality of `Blitzcat' is that the main character (Lord Gort) is believable, loveable and undeniably an animal, meaning that the author has cleverly portrayed a cat's perspective with what feels like little to no human bias. The cat is the thread that draws the random human characters together and serves as a cunning tool to lure the young reader into learning about the lives of British people during the war.

This read is borderline Year 6 due to the hard content and upsetting turn of events that may be too much for the sensitive pupil. But for a child that is interested in world events (WWII) and 20th century history, this vivid and real book offers a gateway to the further study of history.