Jenny's Moonlight Adventure

At nine o'clock The Cat Club will convene to celebrate this wondrous Halloween night in Jenny's Moonlight Adventure. All the cats, from twins Romulus and Remus through to the wise Solomon, have been looking forward to this evening. The high point of the party is to be the nose flute performance by the Persian cat Madame Butterfly, but she has hurt herself, cannot leave her house, and has lost her instrument. The flute is found in a pile of autumn leaves but there's still the problem of how to return the flute to its beautiful Persian owner. Jenny comes up with a very adventurous plan. After all, Halloween is "her" night. But will she pull it off?

Esther Averill (1902-1992) began her career as a storyteller drawing cartoons for her local newspaper. After graduating from Vassar College in 1923, she moved first to New York City and then to Paris, where she founded her own publishing company. The Domino Press introduced American readers to artists from all over the world, including Feodor Rojankovsky, who later won a Caldecott Award. In 1941, Esther Averill returned to the United States and found a job in the New York Public Library while continuing her work as a publisher. She wrote her first book about the red-scarfed, mild-mannered cat Jenny Linsky in 1944, modeling its heroine on her own shy cat. Esther Averill would eventually write twelve more tales about Miss Linsky and her friends (including the I Can Read Book, The Fire Cat), each of which was eagerly awaited by children all over the United States (and their parents, too).