Award winning American author. Born in Kansas in 1899. Worked as a teacher before becoming a writer. Apparently she became a writer by accident when she inadvertently found herself in a creative writing class at a local college when her own class was full up. Her first book was actually written whilst attending the course! Her career became very successful. One of her books (Annie and the Old One) was made into a film and received a Newbery Honour award.
She used her experiences of living on a farm and a Navajo reservation and her many travels, to colour her children's fictional stories, most of which were about animals, nature and different cultures. Quite a few of her novels were horse stories. She also wrote non-fiction, including a number of biographies.
She wrote under her own name, as Patricia A. Miles, and also under two other pseudonyms: Miska Miles and Jerry Lane. Her pony books were written under her own name and that of the Miska Miles pseudonym. I don't think she wrote any horse-related stories under her other pen names.
An interesting picture book about an alley cat and the day in the life of such a creature. Miles really must have observed cats to write this, not only are the descriptions accurate, but the illustrations are very detailed. Is there much of a story to this? Not really. But I'm a cat fan and I'm always drawn to the behaviors and stories of cats. So I probably enjoyed this one more than the average reader. My rating - 4/5
This book is an honest look at a few days in the life of a stray cat. It's not a sad book, but some parts might be a bit scary for very young children. I appreciated the lack of a fabricated storybook ending and think the story is good for older kids to understand the reality of the lives of stray cats.