 Front cover of a Penguin Books paperback edition | |
| Author | Paul Gallico |
|---|---|
| Country | United States |
| Genre | Children's fantasy novel |
| Publisher | Doubleday |
Publication date | 1957 |
| Media type | Print (hardcover) |
| ISBN | 0385048041 |
Thomasina, the Cat Who Thought She Was God or Thomasina is a 1957 novel by Paul Gallico about a cat, owned by a child whose strict father must learn that love is powerful enough to help others. [1] The book was adapted for the 1963 Disney film The Three Lives of Thomasina . [2]
Andrew MacDhui, a widowed veterinary surgeon working in fictional Inveranoch, Scotland in 1912 has a young daughter, Mary Ruadh, who is attached to her pet ginger cat Thomasina (who narrates some of the story). Although Mary loves Thomasina, her father MacDhui only tolerates the cat. MacDhui is a bitter and resentful atheist because his wife died young, and while he had desired to be a medical doctor to save humans, his overbearing father forced him to be a vet like himself. The village children talk of a local "witch" named Lori who is said to cure ailing animals through magic. After MacDhui refuses to help an injured frog found by Geordie McNab, the boy takes the frog to Lori and leaves it for her to heal.
One day Thomasina falls ill, so Mary takes her beloved cat to her father expecting him to cure Thomasina. To Mary's shock, MacDhui has his assistant chloroform Thomasina and tells Mary that she's been euthanized. Mary recovers Thomasina's body, and her friend Hughie Stirling suggests giving her the best funeral the village children can arrange. Mary obliges and the children write on Thomasina's headboard that she was "foulley murdered." Mary refuses to talk to her father again until he brings Thomasina back and spurns his offer of a new pet. She later confides to her father's friend, the Reverend Peddie with whom MacDhui spars over God's existence, that her father is dead and that she killed him. As time passes, Mary stops talking altogether and loses interest in life.
When the funeral is over and Mary and her friends leave Thomasina's burial place in the hills, Lori appears, exhumes Thomasina's body, and discovers the cat is still alive; the chloroform simply induced a deep sleep. Lori takes the cat to her own cottage to recover. When Thomasina wakes up, she thinks she is Bastet the Egyptian cat goddess, resurrected. The other animals at Lori's cottage don't believe her, especially when she tries to show her powers to them. Thomasina does not remember Mary or her former life. Lori renames her "Talitha" and keeps her.
Meanwhile, Mary has become ill and is eventually confined to bed, unable to speak. As a result of MacDhui's treatment of Thomasina, many villagers have stopped taking their animals to him and instead are taking them to Lori. MacDhui goes to confront Lori over this and ends up helping her care for a badly injured badger that is beyond her ability to heal. He is touched by her tenderness and learns that she also has experienced the loss of her close family. He visits her often teaching her medical skills, and they eventually join forces to rescue the starving and abused animals the gypsies camping outside of town are showing and together fight with the gypsies.
Upon hearing that Mary will die soon, MacDhui goes to fetch Lori believing only she can help Mary, but overwhelmed by his vehemence, she doesn't respond. Coming upon Thomasina's grave on his way home, the inscription on the gravestone reveals his true nature to him, and he calls on God for forgiveness then returns to Mary. Lori comes at Reverend Peddie's request, and Thomasina, who has been sleeping in a drawer scented with lavender at Lori's cottage, wakes up and suddenly remembers her true identity and her past life with Mary and is impelled to make her way back to Mary through a rainstorm. When Thomasina appears at Mary's window, Lori recognizes her as the cat she rescued, the housekeeper lets her in and MacDhui hands her back to Mary. Mary is overjoyed to have her cat again and immediately starts to recover. MacDhui marries Lori and becomes a kinder veterinarian who now likes Thomasina.
In 1963 The Three Lives of Thomasina , a film based on Thomasina, was released by Disney Studios. [2]
In European folklore of the medieval and early modern periods, familiars were believed to be supernatural entities or spiritual guardians that would protect or assist witches and cunning folk in their practice of magic. According to records of the time, those alleging to have had contact with familiar spirits reported that they could manifest as numerous forms, usually as an animal, but sometimes as a human or humanoid figure, and were described as "clearly defined, three-dimensional... forms, vivid with colour and animated with movement and sound", as opposed to descriptions of ghosts with their "smoky, undefined form[s]".
A Hat Full of Sky is a comic fantasy novel by British writer Terry Pratchett, set on the Discworld and written with younger readers in mind. It is labelled a "Story of Discworld" to indicate its status as children's or young adult fiction, unlike most of the books in the Discworld series. First published in 2004, the book is set two years after The Wee Free Men, and features an 11-year-old Tiffany Aching.
The Worst Witch is a series of children's books written and illustrated by Jill Murphy. The series are primarily about a girl named Mildred Hubble who attends a witch school and fantasy stories, with eight books published. The first, The Worst Witch, was published in 1974 by Allison & Busby, and the most recent, First Prize for the Worst Witch, was published in 2018 by Puffin Books, the current publisher of the series. The books have become some of the most successful titles on the Young Puffin paperback list and have sold more than 5 million copies.
Paul William Gallico was an American novelist and short story and sports writer. Many of his works were adapted for motion pictures. He is perhaps best remembered for The Snow Goose, his most critically successful book, for the novel The Poseidon Adventure, primarily through the 1972 film adaptation, and for four novels about the beloved character of Mrs. Harris.
Sabrina: The Animated Series is an American animated television series based on the Archie Comics series Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Produced by Savage Studios Ltd. and Hartbreak Films in association with DIC Productions, L.P., the series is an animated spin-off of the 1996–2003 live-action series Sabrina the Teenage Witch.
Hocus Pocus is a 1993 American fantasy comedy film directed by Kenny Ortega from a screenplay by Mick Garris and Neil Cuthbert, and a story by David Kirschner and Garris. It follows a villainous comedic trio of witches who are inadvertently resurrected by a teenage boy in Salem, Massachusetts, on Halloween night.
Thomasina,Thomasine, orThomasena is the feminine form of the given name Thomas, which means "twin". Thomasina is often shortened to Tamsin. Tamsin can be used as a name in itself; variants of Tamsin include Tamsyn, Tamzin, Tamsen, Tammi and Tamasin. The version "Tamsin" is especially popular in Cornwall and Wales. Along with Tamara it is the ancestor of "Tammy".
Salem Saberhagen is a character from the American Archie Comics comic series Sabrina the Teenage Witch. Salem is an American Shorthair cat who lives with Sabrina Spellman, Hilda Spellman and Zelda Spellman in the fictional town of Greendale, located near Riverdale. A formerly human witch, Salem was sentenced by the Witch's Council to spend 100 years as a cat, as punishment for trying to take over the world. Salem first appeared alongside Sabrina in Archie's Mad House #22 in 1962, and was created by George Gladir and Dan DeCarlo.
The Three Lives of Thomasina is a 1963 fantasy film directed by Don Chaffey about a cat's influence on a family. Patrick McGoohan and Susan Hampshire star alongside child actors Karen Dotrice and Matthew Garber. Based on Paul Gallico's 1957 novel Thomasina, the Cat Who Thought She Was God, the film was shot in Inveraray, Argyll, Scotland, and Pinewood Studios, England, with a screenplay by Gallico and Robert Westerby.
The Secret Files of the Spy Dogs is an American children's animated series, produced by Saban Entertainment, that aired on Fox Kids from 1998 to 1999.
Snow White's Enchanted Wish is a dark ride at the Disneyland, Tokyo Disneyland, and Disneyland Paris theme parks, and formerly at the Magic Kingdom. Located in Fantasyland, it is one of the few remaining attractions that was operational on Disneyland's opening day in 1955, although it has seen several different redesigns over its history. The ride's story is based on Disney's 1937 film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, their first animated feature film.
The Giant Who Had No Heart in His Body is a Norwegian fairy tale collected by Asbjørnsen and Moe.
Karen Dotrice is a British actress. She is known primarily for her role as Jane Banks in Walt Disney's Mary Poppins, the feature film adaptation of the Mary Poppins book series. Dotrice was born in Guernsey in the Channel Islands to two stage actors. Her career began on stage, and expanded into film and television, including starring roles as a young girl whose beloved cat magically reappears in Disney's The Three Lives of Thomasina and with Thomasina co-star Matthew Garber as one of two children pining for their parents' attentions in Poppins. She appeared in five television programmes between 1972 and 1978, when she made her only feature film as an adult. Her life as an actress concluded with a short run as Desdemona in the 1981 pre-Broadway production of Othello.
The Good Witch is a television film that aired on the Hallmark Channel on January 19, 2008. It stars Catherine Bell as Cassandra "Cassie" Nightingale and Chris Potter as chief of police Jake Russell. The film has spawned a franchise of six followup television films and the television series Good Witch.
Hills of Home is a 1948 American Technicolor drama film, the fourth in a series of seven MGM Lassie films. It starred Edmund Gwenn, Donald Crisp, and Tom Drake.
Cozy mysteries, also referred to as "cosy mysteries" or "cozies", are a sub-genre of crime fiction in which sex and violence occur offstage, the detective is an amateur sleuth, and the crime and detection take place in a small, socially-intimate community. Cozies thus stand in contrast to hardboiled fiction, in which more violence and explicit sexuality are central to the plot. The term "cozy" was first coined in the late 20th century when various writers produced work in an attempt to re-create the Golden Age of Detective Fiction.
"The Three Feathers" is a story by the Brothers Grimm, in their Kinder- und Hausmärchen. It is KHM nr. 63. It is classified as Aarne–Thompson–Uther ATU 402, "The Animal Bride". It appeared in the first edition in 1812, and was slightly reworked for the second edition in 1819. A second variant of the tale also collected by the Brothers Grimm is "The Poor Miller's Boy and the Cat", listed as KHM 106.
Pet Pals is an Italian animated television series. It was created by Sergio Manfio while the Disney cartoonist Giorgio Cavazzano served as art director. Two feature films based on the series were produced: Cuccioli - Il codice di Marco Polo in 2010 and Cuccioli - Il paese del vento in 2014.
Mary and the Witch's Flower is a 2017 Japanese animated fantasy film co-written and directed by Hiromasa Yonebayashi, produced by Studio Ponoc founder Yoshiaki Nishimura, animated by Studio Ponoc, and distributed by Toho in Japan. Based on the 1971 book The Little Broomstick by Mary Stewart, it was Studio Ponoc's first feature film. It stars the voices of Hana Sugisaki, Yūki Amami and Fumiyo Kohinata.
