The gravedigger is late coming home. His wife, sitting by the fireside with her old black cat Tom, becomes concerned. Then suddenly the Gravedigger burst through the door and anxiously demands, “Who’s Tom Tildrum?” Then he babbles about how he’s witnessed a funeral procession of cats loudly yowling “Miaow,” and carrying a coffin entered the graveyard carrying upon their shoulders a coffin with a crown atop it. The lead cat walks up to the Gravedigger on his hind legs, looks him in the eye and announces, “Tell Tom Tildrum that Tim Toldrum’s dead.”

While the old man is telling this fantastic tale to his wife, he’s aware that her cat Tom is staring at him, just like the cat in the graveyard did. And as they both stare at their housecat something uncanny happens.

"Tom was swelling and Tom was staring and at last Tom shrieked out, 'What—old Tim dead! Then I, Tom Tildrum, am King of the Cats!'
And Old Tom rushed up the chimney and was never seen again."

While the subtitle is a bit misleading since there are no ghosts in the tale, nevertheless, Galdone by using illustration and skillful pacing from page to page in this picture book continually builds the tension resulting in a very scary retelling of this English folktale. ( )

This is the story of a the family of a gravedigger. One day, the gravedigger comes rushing home to tell his wife that he had seen ghosts of cats at the graveyard that night. As he begins to tell his tell, the gravedigger's cat becomes increasingly interested. Finally, the gravedigger tells his wife what the cats had told him and his cats says that he is now the King of the Cats and disappears into the night!

This is an interesting story that would be a good Halloween book for children. The book is about an old gravedigger with an incredible story about 9 black cats. The illustrations are very expressive. 'The King of the Cats' is a good read for beginning readers.

For more information about the author's collection of works, vist: http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/18444.Paul_Galdone ( )

The perfect Halloween book! Very different. When I read this book, it brought back emotions that I felt when being read to in elementary school. This book was written in the 1980s and is a different kind of literature than today's writing's! Definitely a good read in a weird way!