One-Eyed Cat

by Paula Fox

Ned Wallis knows he's forbidden to touch the rifle in the attic. But he can't resist sneaking it out of the house, just once. Before he realizes it, Ned takes a shot at a dark shadow.

When Ned retums home, he's sure he sees a face looking down at him from the attic window. Who has seen and heard him?

Ned's feelings of guilt and fear only get worse when one day, while helping an elderly neighbor, he spots a wild cat with one eye missing. Could this be the thing Ned shot at that night? How can Ned bring himself to reveal his painful secret?

Genres: Fiction, Young Adult, Childrens, Middle Grade, Realistic Fiction, Cats, Historical Fiction

216 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1984

About the author

Paula Fox was an American author of novels for adults and children and two memoirs. Her novel The Slave Dancer (1973) received the Newbery Medal in 1974; and in 1978, she was awarded the Hans Christian Andersen Medal. More recently, A Portrait of Ivan won the Deutscher Jugendliteraturpreis in 2008.

A teenage marriage produced a daughter, Linda, in 1944. Given the tumultuous relationship with her own biological parents, she gave the child up for adoption. Linda Carroll, the daughter Fox gave up for adoption, is the mother of musician Courtney Love.

Fox then attended Columbia University, married the literary critic and translator Martin Greenberg, raised two sons, taught, and began to write.

Reviews

[Jeremy · Rating 5 out of 5]

I currently temp at a hospital administrative building, so I don't know anyone and I'm not looking to forge any lasting relationships. This gives me plenty of reading time during lunches and breaks, and I limit my work reading choices to the paperbacks available in a plastic "take one/leave one" bin in my building's cafeteria, both because I know I'll forget or misplace any books I bring from home, and because I enjoy forcing myself to read material I might not normally gravitate toward in the face of wider options.

This is how I happened upon "One Eyed Cat", and it provided just the type of experience I was looking for when I decided on this method of reading at work. Quite simply, there's some beautiful writing here; nothing showy, no unearned sentiment. It's all very internal, so we're constantly privy to this pre-adolescent boy's perception of a variety of often traumatic events, and Ms. Fox manages to become the character as opposed to simply conjuring him for the approval of an audience. Though the prose manages to be both evocative and dead-on in its sparseness, not once did I feel as though I were reading what a middle-aged woman thinks a boy might wonder and feel about this and that.

A book for young adults written in 1984 may well turn out to be the most satisfying book I read this year.

[Richard Houchin · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is the first book I can remember reading that I absolutely hated. I hate this book. It is seared, seared into my memory. If I could give it negative stars, I would.

[Kendall · Rating 1 out of 5]

I thought if I kept reading it would get better... I wish I hadn't kept reading

[Tory C. · Rating 5 out of 5]

I recently read Crime and Punishment for the second time. It fit my needs and filled my soul so well that I commented to my daughter that I would never have to read another book. How could I read another book after the experience I had with that classic? All that could be left in the world would be mediocre in comparison. Then I discovered One-Eyed Cat.

It’s ironic that One-Eyed Cat, by Paula Fox, published in 1984 is a book that I “discovered.” It was written by an author who won many major awards and accolades throughout her career, and the book itself won the 1985 Newberry Honor Award. And I had to discover it? Go figure. It was my sixteen year old daughter who sent it my way. I’m glad she did.

One-Eyed Cat is not flashy, dramatic, or edgy. Instead, it is the memory of a moment of time that, for whatever reason, stays clear in your mind forever. A boy feels responsible for the life of a cat whose eye he might have shot out with a bb gun. The book circles around this event. A lesser writer than Paula Fox wouldn’t attempt to try to keep a reader’s attention with something so mundane. Paula Fox attempts, and succeeds.

Paula succeeds because, as my daughter told me, the book really isn’t about the one-eyed cat. It’s actually about the boy and the people in his life, and the place where he lives. Paula weaves together the children and adults, the empty mansions and over-populated shacks, the hills and the Hudson River, even the seasons, into a tapestry that quietly, but insistently, requires your attention.
She lays out the minutia of life and uses it to create life. For example, she turns eating dinner on a hot September afternoon into something more, even though it isn’t. It’s the way we want to see our lives, but don’t:

When Ned ate his early Sunday supper on the porch, the sky flared like fire, and the monastery bells, ringing for vespers, seemed to be working their way through hot tar.

Ned has lied to his mother, something he is not accustomed to doing. Ned feels the need for the lie, but feels bad at the same time. Paula puts it this way:

His mother was staring at him. He suddenly knew she was trying to read his face, and he felt a strange burst of relief. He hadn’t quite convinced her, in a way he couldn’t understand, that made him feel safer.

I take it to mean that if someone doesn’t quite believe your lie, have you actually lied?

Ned’s life winds its way among three groups of people his parents and housekeeper, the children he walks to school with, and old Mr. Scully. Ned’s life has different nuances with each group. With his parents it’s about lies and secrets. With the children it’s about discovery. With Mr. Scully, it’s about the truth. These stories simmer together into a beautiful dish that pleases the eye, the nose, and the tongue.

Walking to school one morning Ned asks Evelyn if she has seen a one-eyed cat around. Evelyn, who lives in small home with far too many children and not enough money responds:

“I think I did,” Evelyn said, picking a tiny fragment of eggshell out of her hair. “Now look at that!” she exclaimed. “I wonder where it ever came from.”

The one-eyed cat is the anchor point of the story, but Evelyn, picking a piece of egg shell out of her hair stands clearly in my mind.

Ned, to earn 35 cents a week, spends time assisting old Mr. Scully around his shack of a home. It’s a job that most youth would do reluctantly, even for the money. Even Ned might not be so willing to spend time there if it weren’t for the feral, one-eyed cat making a bed on top of the old refrigerator under the shed out back. This need to look out for the cat creates a bond between Mr. Scully and him. This bond with an old man and his memories is an unexpected gift to Ned—and to the reader. Eventually Ned shares his dark secret with the dying Mr. Scully. In a moment where truth meets death Paula gives us this:

He was looking straight at Ned. His mouth moved. Then is hand began a hesitant, inching journey toward Ned’s hand, which rested on the coverlet. . . . He felt the touch of Mr. Scully’s finger, then gradually his whole hand covering Ned’s own. There was the faintest pressure, so faint, Ned wasn’t sure how he knew there’d been any at all.

In the end One-Eyed Cat is about the loss of innocence, but it’s done Paula Fox style. Through the imagery of light and shadow, of land and seasons, and through relationships with trust on one side and deceit on the other. The one-eyed cat is the center point of a picture in the round. Tethered to the cat, Ned journeys in a circle that, even though it ends where it starts, leaves us feeling different about the world. The world may appear more complex, but it’s also more complete. Our ability to live peacefully in it is greater.

[Bonnie · Rating 4 out of 5]

In my quest to read more Newbery Medal/Newbery Honor books I spied this book at the library and promptly devoured it. Just maybe the fact that it had "cat" in its title made me more apt to choose this one over another.

Neddy is the a son of a pastor and a homebound mother with rheumatoid arthritis before there were any medications for it.

The angelic father, the pious and unlikeable housekeeper/cook "He opened his mouth and she said at once, before he could speak, 'Calm down, calm down.' He hated the way she spoke in that false soothing voice, as if she owned the country of calm and he was some kind of fool who’d stumbled across its borders" and the pain-ridden but feisty mother, the well-traveled doting uncle who gives the boy a gun for his birthday (much to the chagrin of his father and pivotal to the story), the widower down the street who's been abandoned to old age creep by his daughter whom he helps with some light chores, and the one-eyed cat (that was just maybe shot with a gun) make up the world of this boy who lives in a cozy, idyllic house with the ubiquitious dusty, old attic where the gun is stored away from the boy.

[Nathan Johnson · Rating 1 out of 5]

This was one of the books that made me wary of trusting anything with a Newberry award.
I hate this book, it is easily one of the 5 worst books I have ever read.
The main character spends the entire book feeling massive guilt for something he isn't even sure he did.
I felt little sympathy for his guilt in disobeying his father and taking the BB gun. I felt that his father was portrayed as rather overbearing and paranoid. Which prevented him from teaching Ned how to responsibly use his gift.

He was a stupid boy to shoot randomly at a shadow, but there is no good reason for him to feel such massive guilt when he is not even sure if he was the cause of the cat's injury.

The only redeeming part of the book is Ned's relationship with Mr. Scully. Unfortunately it is overshadowed by his ridiculous guilt for an injured cat.

There was a possibility for deep character interaction in this book, it was not there.

This is certainly no Old Man and the Sea.

[Steve Shilstone · Rating 2 out of 5]

The arthritic mother's story would have been a heck of a read.

[Luann · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is well-written, but has such a sad, quiet guilt infused into the story that I didn't find it pleasant to read. Although I did really like Ned's neighbor, old Mr. Scully, and Ned's friendship with him. The ending is very sweet which made me like the whole book a lot more.

I never realized people could be so debilitated from rheumatoid arthritis. I felt sorry for Ned's mom. She seemed like quite the character when she was having one of her better days. I'd also never heard of gold salts (chrysotherapy) as a treatment.

Just a bit of trivia, I believe this is only the third book I've read with Turkish delight - the second being Rebel Angels by Libba Bray and the first being The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, of course.

Note: This was a Newbery Honor winner in 1985.

[Peacegal · Rating 3 out of 5]

One-Eyed Cat is a fine humane education selection, particularly for public and school libraries in rural areas where a child's first BB gun is a rite of passage.

Despite being forbidden to do so by his father, young Ned sneaks out one night for some target practice with his new Daisy rifle. Without thinking, he fires at a creeping, shadowy figure. When he later spots a wounded cat who is missing one eye, the boy is haunted by guilt.

Fox explores big themes like taking responsibility for one's actions and the ways in which careless behaviors can impact others in serious and unforeseen ways. All good stuff. She also introduces the idea that even the life of a skinny stray cat has meaning, and, to paraphrase an old saying, "the squirrel you shoot in jest, dies in earnest."

I couldn't, however, avoid picking up the irony of Ned's selective sympathy toward animals. While digging into plates of lamb chops or turkey, his mind is tormented by the thought of the cat suffering and dying as a result of his choices. The animals on the plate are just as capable of suffering greatly for our whims, but they are invisible to him.

Despite this oversight, One Eyed Cat imparts a message which still needs to be absorbed in many communities.

[Natalie · Rating 1 out of 5]

Okay, I actually finished this book several weeks ago and it took some deep digging to actually remember what it was about. Obviously, it was very memorable.

For some reason this book reminded of a Nathaniel Hawthorne-lite. I’m not sure why, it was probably mostly the setting. Or maybe it’s all just a fancy.

Basically there is a boy with a sick mother who plays with his gun on the DL and maybe he actually shoots a cat. Massive guilt takes over and he spends about a million years stressing about it, finally admits what he did and the book ends.

Literally, that’s it. I apologize if you think that it is a spoiler. I don’t really know if you can spoil a book when nothing ever happens. It was about 10 years too long for that plot. That’s a plot that should be a fifty page short story, instead it’s over five hours on the audio. There is nothing exciting or fun. It is literally just a long book about a boy feeling guilty about something he may or may not have done.

Another Newbery that is less than impressive. Glad to check it off the list.

[Cheryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

" Ned was at once reminded of the past. The time before his mother had become ill.... It was the time he'd been happy and hadn't known it. When he was happy now, he would remind himself he was. He would say, at this moment I'm happy."

" you must beware of people who wear their hearts on their sleeves; it's not the natural place to keep your heart--it turns rusty and thin, and it leaves you hollow inside."

Mrs. Scallop " was locked inside of her own opinions like a prisoner."

It's important to know that this takes place during the recovery from the Great Depression, on the Hudson river in rural New York. And that mother has rheumatoid arthritis, an auto-immune disease.

[Martina · Rating 1 out of 5]

I would not recommend this book to anyone. It was a fairly short book, but it took me a long time to read because it was so boring. The main character got a gun and shot it one time, and realizes later that he hit a stray cat in the eye. He then becomes obsessed with the cat. Not very exciting.

[Twofrontteethstillcrooked · Rating 5 out of 5]

I started a reread of this in honor of Fox's recent passing; it remains one of the best books I've read as an adult that I wouldn't have touched with a 900 foot pole as a kid. This speaks more to my essential awfulness as a child than to Fox's writing, ftr. This short middle-school novel is thoughtful and compassionate -- heartfelt without ever, for any length of time, feeling cloyingly sentimental in the least. It is seems to me to capture, seemingly without effort, that essential feeling of being young-on-the-cusp-of-older, of being alternately bold or timid about one's own transformation from kid to teen (and beyond), our own failures, the strangeness of adults, the ways we're bound to other people, especially those adults we love, and the hard joys of living and dying.

So maybe, to be honest, I wouldn't give this to a kid to read even now, though I like to think there are at least a few who would in fact appreciate it as I am positive I wouldn't have. ;)

[Sue · Rating 2 out of 5]

Maybe I'm just too shallow to see all the great messages in this book, but I just didn't like it and never got into it. I didn't really like any of the characters, except the old neighbor, Mr. Scully, & maybe the long-suffering mother with rheumatoid arthritis, but even she was remote. The boy who is the star of the show is laden with guilt for something he may or may not have done & I feel like the book is designed to show how he resolves his guilt. But really I felt like he just moved through a lot of experiences & then denied everything in the end. It was weird and one of those books that makes me wonder what the committee was thinking when it was chosen. But if you loved it, more power to you.

[Sarah · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was like if the author of Gilead was trying to write for children. Very slow, but meaningful in places. You have to stick with it, and I'm not sure too many kids would have the patience, especially since the payout for this one winds up being a moral lesson about lying. As a parent, I approved, but I'd be curious to hear a kid's perspective.

[Fateme H.]

نامزدی نیوبری ترغیبم کرد که بخونمش ولی... نمی‌دانم. کمی از انتظارم پایین‌تر بود. به مسائل جالب و مهمی اشاره کرده بود و نمی‌شه گفت کتاب بد یا ضعیفی بود، صرفا من خیلی باهاش حال نکردم.
من ترجمه‌ی نشر نردبان رو خوندم. کیفیت ترجمه و چاپ خوب نبود. هی فکر می‌کردم تو دهه هشتاد چاپ شده و نه تو سال ۱۴۰۱.

[Mellanie C]

I registered a book at BookCrossing.com!
http://www.BookCrossing.com/journal/14792734

[Isak · Rating 4 out of 5]

i love children's lit <3

[Sandra Stiles · Rating 3 out of 5]

For his 11th birthday Ned's uncle gives him a Daisy air-rifle. Ned's father, a preacher, doesn't approve of the gun and puts it away in the attic until Ned turns 14. Ned has always been respectful to his preacher father and his arthritic mother. He has never really been disobedient, until now. He sneaks up into the attic and brings the rifle down. He just wants to fire it once and then he will gladly put it away. He sees a shadow near the barn and shoots. As he turns to go in the house he sees a face at the window. Was it his father, who would know that Ned had disobeyed? Was it snoopy, sour Mrs. Scallop? Could it have possibly have been his mother? Ned slips back into the house and replaces the rifle. Later when he is at his neighbor's house helping out he sees a cat with only one eye. Ned is sure that he is responsible for the injury. As life happens around Ned the guilt builds up in him. Who does he tell and how will that help now?

[Joy · Rating 2 out of 5]

1985 Newbery Honor Book

I really don't know what to make of this book. It wasn't horrible but it did not engage me and I felt it prodded along. The message at the end and the ending in general fit the story. The overall mood of the book is kind of depressing.

Ned is the only son of the local pastor. His mother is sick and mostly bedridden and their housekeeper is pretty mean. Ned gets a gun for his birthday from his uncle but it is taken away from him by his father. Ned steals the gun and fires at something in the dark of night. A few days later he discovers a one eyed cat while helping his old neighbor go through stuff and the rest of the book is about Ned's guilt (because he thinks he shot the eye out of the cat) and his obsession with trying to keep the cat alive because he feels he has to.

[Julia · Rating 2 out of 5]

The setting for this slim novel is a large, gray, falling down house overlooking the Hudson River, perhaps around Hudson or Poughkeepsie, though those cities are never mentioned. It's set in 1935 and the main character's father drives a Packard.

Ned’s Uncle Hilary gives him a Daisy rifle for his eleventh birthday. His father, a Congregational Church minister and his mother is an invalid who suffers greatly from rheumatoid arthritis. The rifle is put in the attic, but Ned gets it out and shoots at a shadow, but the shadow turns out to be a cat. Ned is consumed by guilt for months.

This is a slight, old- fashioned novel where very little happens. I didn't hate it, but I didn't like it either.

[Melody · Rating 3 out of 5]

My goodness! So many reviewers loathe this book. Perhaps the Newberry Award set them up for disappointment? It’s about guilt. That special brand of childhood guilt that is so innocent, before a child is fully aware of the depths of the world’s depravity and how accidentally shooting a cat pales in comparison to true horrors.
The book was written before cell phones, before school shootings, before you instantly could view real time videos of voilence and destruction, when your family and community was the only world you knew. The descriptions of the woods and the river and the poverty and the simple routines of every day life took me back to my childhood. Ned is going to be alright. And so is the cat. ♥️

[Tracie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I liked this book though the tone was melancholy throughout. I think it would be difficult to get kids to read this today; there isn't much action - except in the young boy's head. Essentially, a young boy whose mother is practically bedridden with rheumatoid arthritis is given a gun for his birthday. His father, a local minister, feels he is too young for the weapon and puts it in the attic until he is older. The boy cannot resist, sneaks the gun out late one night and probably shoots a cat in the eye. The book deals with his guilt over the cat and the boy's realizations about life and death.

[Laura · Rating 2 out of 5]

I didn't really see the point to this book and felt like it was a flop. I didn't feel for any of the characters and wanted more development in the plot and personalities. I wasn't depressed by the content even though it was not a cheerful story. After I finished reading this book I sat there for a few moments wondering if maybe I had missed something. I was not impressed with this Newbery.

*Taken from my book reviews blog: http://reviewsatmse.blogspot.com/2010...

[Thomas Bell · Rating 2 out of 5]

I thought that Paula Fox tried too hard to make this a heartwarming tale. It didn't work. Let's face it. The book won an honor because the awards committee thought that this would help young people to learn to not lie or at least to tell their parents or someone right away. This book is a big guilt trip, and the author tries to spruce it up by throwing in an old man, a kid-bully, an adult-bully (the caretaker), and a mom who can hardly move. Oh, and make the dad a preacher for good measure. Seems to me that the author was just trying too hard.

[Lance Greenlee · Rating 2 out of 5]

While I'm a fan of Newbery Medal Books and Newbery Honor Books, this one's a bit of a dud. If it weren't a class book, I would have given it up. The character's motivation to lie to his parents was unconvincing. His sudden fear of all animals, even in National Geographic magazine, was unconvincing and odd. The book lacked any thrust or momentum: the main character is not driven to escape any threat, nor achieve any goal, uncover any mystery, or even grow internally. It was boring.

[Catherine · Rating 2 out of 5]

This book starts out well with interesting relationships between the characters, but Fox did not stick the landing. The ending is quite strange and didn't really seem to fit.

The story his mom tells him at the end seems to come out of left field.

It does contain some words for thought though. "She was locked insider her own opinions like a prisoner" (Fox 200).

[Ann Marie · Rating 2 out of 5]

So after reading Dear Mr. Henshaw, I was very excited to select another book from the bookset of Newberry Medal winners...

I picked wrong... this book was boring.

Next time I am home, I am going to read Island of the Blue Dolphins. I may not remember that book, but I remember loving it.

[Sarah Smith · Rating 1 out of 5]

I read this book as a child and recently found a review I'd written many moons ago. Thought I'd share:

"Dear Paula, I thought this book would be very interesting because I like cats but I don't like the one eyed cat I think it is really boring. I think it is so boring I couldn't concentrate very well on it. It was so boring I gave it a one star."

:)

[Dale · Rating 1 out of 5]

(JF-Newberry Honor Book); previously this year, I read this author’s dreadful Newberry Winner. This one is not nearly as dreadful but did not hold my interest and after 90 pgs. I was like “what is the point in finishing this book?”, so I didn’t; 1984 hardback via Madison County Public Library, Berea, attempted Mar. 12-13 , 2017