Blitzcat - Softcover

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.

Sensitive readers will realize at once that the story of Lord Gort is one of those tales that, once begun, demands to be finished. Black cats bring good luck, or so it is believed by the many people whose lives are changed by their encounters with the cat called Lord Gort. Lord Gort is an ordinary cat: she has no magic powers and rarely does anything more than what other cats can do. When her master leaves home to fight the Germans in World War II Lord Gort sets out to track him down. In the course of her travels the black cat is befriended by a lonely volunteer in the Observer Corps, a maverick sergeant, an elderly carter and a young war widow. Adopted by the rear gunner of a bomber plane, Lord Gort flies on numerous missions over enemy territory. After many successful flights, the intrepid feline's luck runs out; she and the rear gunner are forced to bail out over occupied France. With the help of the Spanish and French resistance movements the man and the cat return to England, where Lord Gort is reunited with her master. Each of these glimpses of men and women in wartime is as perfect as a pearl; Lord Gort's journey is the single black thread on which the precious beads are strung. Ages 12-up.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.