[ 책 소개 ]

* ALA Newbery Honor 수상작
* New York Times Bestseller
* National Book Award Finalist
* ALA Notable Children's Books
* CCBC Choices (Cooperative Children's Book Council)
* Charlie May Simon Book Award ML (AR)
* NYPL 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing
* PEN USA Literary Award for Children's Literature
* Rodda Book Award Nominee
* Virginia Readers’ Choice Award Master List


국내에는 "마루밑"이라는 제목으로 번역서가 출간된 명작 아동문학입니다.

새끼를 가진 고양이가 늪지가 있는 숲 속 깊은 곳에 버려졌습니다. 거기서 고양이는 쇠사슬에 묶인 사냥개 레인저의 외로운 울음소리를 따라가 그 옆에서 새끼를 낳고, 이들은 묘한 가족을 이룹니다.

이 오래된 숲에는 천년 넘게 산 악어 왕과 반인반수 뱀 모카신 할머니와 같은 전설의 생물들이 살고 있습니다. 모카신 할머니는 딸 ‘밤 노래’가 ‘매 사나이’를 따라 자신의 곁을 떠나자, 다시 딸을 강제로 데려옵니다. 하지만 밤 노래는 남편 ‘매 사나이’와 어린 딸을 그리워하다 죽고 맙니다. 모카신 할머니는 슬픔과 분노를 이기지 못해, 남자에게 복수하려다 도리어 밤 노래가 만든 항아리 속에 천 년을 갇혀 지내는 신세가 됩니다. ‘매 사나이’는 아내를 잃은 슬픔으로 인간의 몸을 벗고 매 종족에게 돌아갔고, 밤 노래의 어린 딸은 종적을 감추었습니다. 분노와 깊은 상실감에 젖어 있던 모카신 할머니는 아직 손녀가 남아 있다는 것을 떠올리고, 손녀를 찾아서 함께 지낼 생각만 합니다.

사냥개 레인저는 고양이에게 마루 아래 숨어 아기 고양이 퍽과 사빈을 길러야 한다고 강조합니다. 만약 악독한 집주인 사내 ‘악어사냥꾼’이 이들을 본다면, 즉시 악어 미끼로 쓸 게 분명했기 때문이지요. 하지만 호기심 많은 아기 고양이 퍽은 어느 날 햇볕이 내리쬐는 마당으로 나갔다가 집주인 사내에게 잡혀버립니다. 사내는 새끼를 구하기 위해 뛰어나온 어미 고양이까지 자루에 넣어 악어미끼로 강에 던져집니다.

어미 고양이는 겨우 퍽을 구한 후 죽음을 맞이하게 되고, 홀로 남은 퍽은 사빈과 레인저와 함께 힘을 합쳐 악어 사냥꾼에게 맞서게 되고, 천년 만에 항아리에서 해방되어 먹이를 사냥하러 나온 모카신 할머니의 도움으로 레인저는 목에 걸린 끊을 수 있게 됩니다. 그리고 모카신 할머니는 죽음의 순간이 다가오자 사랑의 의미를 깨닫게 되고 손녀딸과 극적으로 재회합니다...

Caldecott 수상작가인 데이비드 스몰이 그린 다수의 삽화그림들이 책에 대한 흥미를 더욱 높여줍니다.






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Paperback: 336 pages
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1416950591
ISBN-13: 978-1416950592
책크기: 20 cm x 15.8 cm


[ 영문 서평 ]

Book Description
There is nothing lonelier than a cat who has been loved, at least for a while, and then abandoned on the side of the road.

A calico cat, about to have kittens, hears the lonely howl of a chained-up hound deep in the backwaters of the bayou. She dares to find him in the forest, and the hound dares to befriend this cat, this feline, this creature he is supposed to hate. They are an unlikely pair, about to become an unlikely family. Ranger urges the cat to hide underneath the porch, to raise her kittens there because Gar-Face, the man living inside the house, will surely use them as alligator bait should he find them. But they are safe in the Underneath...as long as they stay in the Underneath.

Kittens, however, are notoriously curious creatures. And one kitten's one moment of curiosity sets off a chain of events that is astonishing, remarkable, and enormous in its meaning. For everyone who loves Sounder, Shiloh, and The Yearling, for everyone who loves the haunting beauty of writers such as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Flannery O'Connor, and Carson McCullers, Kathi Appelt spins a harrowing yet keenly sweet tale about the power of love -- and its opposite, hate -- the fragility.


Booklist *Starred Review*
Appelt’s impressive novel (her first) entails animals in crisis - a topic of enduring popularity. But the author, whose path from picture books to fantasy is discussed in the Story behind the Story, breathes new life into the sentient-animals premise, introducing strong currents of magic realism into a tale as rich and complex as “the gumbo-like waters of the bayous.” Chained and starved by cruel trapper Gar Face, lonely hound Ranger finds companions in a stray cat and her two kittens. When Mother Cat falls victim to Gar Face’s abuse, the surviving animals, especially sensitive kitten Puck, struggle to keep their makeshift family together. The animals’ caring, generous bonds juxtapose with the smothering love of an ancient shape-shifter in a moving parallel story. Joining Natalie Babbitt’s Tuck Everlasting as a rare example of youth fantasy with strong American underpinnings, Appelt’s novel folds in specific traditions of the Caddo peoples of east Texas, and casts the bayous as a kind of enchanted forest laden with spirits and benign, organic presences. Some readers may struggle with Appelt’s repeated phrases and poetic fragments, and wish the connections and conflicts in the story came to a faster boil. But most children will be pulled forward by the vulnerable pets’ survival adventure and by Small’s occasional, down-to-earth drawings, created with fluid lines that are a perfect match for the book’s saturated setting and Appelt’s ebbing, flowing lyricism.


School Library Journal
Appelt brings Southern Gothic to the middle grade set. Three separate but eventually entwined stories are told piecemeal. There is the tale of an abandoned, pregnant calico cat who finds shelter and friendship with the bloodhound, Ranger. He is the abused and neglected pet of Gar Face, a broken-jawed recluse who lives in the Texas bayou, where he fled 25 years previously to escape an abusive father. And finally there is the story of Grandmother Moccasin, a shape-shifting water snake who has lain dormant in a jar for a thousand years, buried beneath a loblolly pine tree. The threads are brought together when Puck, one of the newborn kittens, breaks the rule of straying from the safety of The Underneath, the sliver of space beneath Gar Face's porch where Ranger is chained and the cats live. The pace of this book is meandering, and there is a clear effort by the dominant third-person narrator to create a lyrical, ancient tone. However, the constant shift of focus from one story line to the next is distracting and often leads to lost threads. Small's black-and-white illustrations add a certain languid moodiness to the text. Themes of betrayal, hope, and love are reflected in the three stories, but this is a leisurely, often discouraging journey to what is ultimately an appropriate ending.