Cats and Peas........

All this talk about cats and peas reminds me of a book I found at the thrift store called "The Underground Cats" by Susan Bennett. 1974 was a great year and I would have loved this book as a 4 year old when it came out...just as my 4 year old does now! So even though it is old and no longer in print by Macmillan Publishing, Amazon still has some used copies available.

The illustrations are tissue paper collage and have strangely almost come full circle with today's modern colors of olive green, orange, brown and charcoal. (Through the entire book!) Even though you will still know this is a product of the 70's.

A wild and fun fairy tale which starts off simple: "a woman with a lazy daughter and a stepdaughter whom she made work from morning till night." The stepdaughter has to gather wild greens and one day comes across a great, fat cauliflower and pulls it. The earth opens up to a hole with a ladder which leads down to the underground cats. She helps them with their chores and shares a meal of macaroni, roast hen and PEAS! The mamma cat thanks her with a silk dress, slippers, gold rings and a star on her forehead, then sends her home.

After hearing this, the stepmother sends her own daughter to visit the cats but she makes nothing but trouble for everyone and the cats are unhappy. The mother cat dresses her in rags and sends her home. As she climbs out of the hole, roots wrap around her fingers and sour pudding drops down and covers her face! She arrives home "looking uglier than a witch."

And not long afterward, the good stepsister married a handsome young man.