If you could change into anything, what would you be – a tree, a tulip, a cat? in Annie M.G. Schmidt’s Dutch fairy tale – The Cat Who Came In Off the Roof – Minou eats strange chemicals in the biochemical research lab’s trash can, and changes from a cat to a woman.

Minou keeps her cattish ways – purring, staring, licking – as she finds herself a new home with Mr. Tibble, a cat lover and newspaper reporter who favors writing articles about cats.  With the help of the Cat News Agency, the cat network on the roof, Minou feeds timely stories to Tibble and helps him keep his job, but the adventure escalates when the villain, who happens to own a mean German Shepherd, threatens to destroy the town’s factory.

The story is charming and magical, with a Hans Christian Anderson flavor, complete with a moral at the end when Minou has to decide whether or not she wants to become a cat again.  Although this book has just been translated to English, Schmidt is a legend in her home land and has many great stories for ages 7 through adult. If you are a cat lover, you will relate to Minou’s antics, or you may see some cattish person you know in the tale.