The Cat Who Went To Heaven

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This is Good Fortune, from the book The Cat Who Went To Heaven, by Elizabeth Coatsworth.  It is illustrated by Lynd Ward, one of the greats.  I was given a copy of Kidnapped that he drew, and I thought those pictures a window on a wild, cold, violent adventure such as I have never seen.


I still have this.  I have always wanted that coat.


H. J. Ward.  Not the Ward of the day, I will get to him some other time.  But is this great or what?


The only copy of this I can find.  The Cat Who Went To Heaven is about an artist and his little cat, Good Fortune.  When he is hired by a monastery to illustrate the animals attending the dying Buddha, his cat wants to be in the picture.  As cats are excluded from Siddartha because of their nature, the artist does not show a cat in the picture.  But after watching the kitty catch and release a bird, he realizes that all life has the Buddha nature and paints her in.  The cat dies of happiness, right there in front of her picture.  The monks are outraged and take the painting for burning.
And then a miracle happens. 


Gosh, this guy is good.


Real good.


I gotta find a copy of this.


He received the Caldecott medal for this, The Biggest Bear, 1960.


Lynd Ward, 1936.  Self portrait.


Beowulf and Grendel.
 


Sanctuary, The Ivory Tower Above The Fray.  An Artist Is One Of The Residents.  1939.


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