by Moe Zilla

Created on: March 12, 2010

Eleanor Clymer was 72 years old when she wrote "Horatio Goes to the Country." (Over her life, Clymer wrote more than 50 children's books, according to the book's jacket, including "Ice Cream for Dessert.") Clymer had already written three other books about Horatio the cat - though in this book, he starts out very unhappy. The cat's owner, Mrs. Casey, is putting things in a suitcase, and Horatio knows this means that she's going away!

The book opens with a glimpse of the cat's home life, and it's delivered in surprising detail. At first Horatio had liked having Goldilocks, a female cat, around. "But now they had these two kittens, and Goldilocks had no time for anything else." Real-life parents might identify with the hardworking cat couple - though because they're cats, there are also some differences. "Their mother was always running after them and licking them and talking to them. It was an awful bore."

Horatio jumps into Mrs. Casey's suitcase, to send her a message - take me with you! And she explains adoringly that the cats are all coming along on her trip. Mrs. Casey is going to visit her daughter who lives out in the countryside. The long car trip involves two children, two kittens in a box, plus the harried cat parents. "Horatio did not enjoy the ride. He was glad when they arrived and could get out of the car."

There's quirky illustrations for the story by Robert Quackenbush (who was a comparatively young 49.)  He eventually authored more than 100 children's books, according to Wikipedia, and illustrated another 60.  But the style he used for this book is scratchboard - etching lines into a colorful background that's orange (colored with greens and blues). The scratchboard illustrations were created "on location on a farm in Pennsylvania," according to the book's jacket. And Quackenbush also credits a cat "very much like Horatio, who was the inspiration for many of the pictures."

This is a good book for older readers, because it's got a lot of text. Clymer describes the countryside - all the trees and bushes, plus chickens, squirrels, skunks, and raccoons. But Horatio still gets grumpy when his kittens put their paws into his milk and make white paw prints on the floor. He glowers that their mother, Goldilocks, isn't doing anything - and that's when you realize this book was written in 1978. "It's her job to raise them," the cat complains. "Why doesn't she teach them some manners?

"Why doesn't Mrs. Casey take them away?"

Horatio actually hides from his cat family, but the kittens still find him. It's a disturbing message, but Clymer is building up to a resolution. Just when Horatio decides he likes the countryside, Mrs. Casey takes him back to his old home.

But she leaves their kittens behind as pets for her daughter...

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