With his bright blue eyes and sparky magical whiskers, no one could mistake Gobbolino for a kitchen cat, but that's exactly what he longs to be. So, while his sister Sootica learns to turn mice into toads, Gobbolino sets off on a grand adventure to find a nice warm fire and a family to care for him.
Gobbolino has one white paw and blue eyes and isn't wicked at all, so his mother doesn't like him. He escapes to look for a kitchen home but is distrusted everywhere he goes and blamed for mysterious happenings, such as the farmer's milk turning sour and the orphanage children's gruel turning into chocolate.
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Ursula Moray Williams wrote and illustrated over 70 children's books in her lifetime. Born in 1911, she was one of identical twins, both of whom started to write and illustrate their own books at a young age. After spending time in France, Ursula's first book Jean Pierre was published when she was just twenty. Set in the Haute-Savoie region which she knew so well, it followed the adventures of a small boy and his pet goat. Moray Williams wrote her most famous story, The Adventures of the Little Wooden Horse, in 1938, in which a little toy horse is separated from his toymaker ‘uncle' and must endure many dangerous adventures before finally finding a happy ending. A few years later in, 1942, she went on to write Gobbolino, the Witch's Cat, which soon became a firm favourite with children. Her books have been illustrated by Edward Ardizzone and Shirley Hughes, among others.
