Part of Series
Texas Jake is on the mend... and the fur is really flying. Texas Jake, the big yellow tomcat, was badly injured saving his friends from the huge mastiff Bertram the Bad. Now the other cats in the Club of Mysteries are looking for ways to speed Texas Jake's recovery—perhaps earn the right to take his place as leader of the club. Marco and Polo have taken on the riskiest mission of all—gathering some comfrey leaves to heal Texas Jake's wounds. The problem is, comfrey grows only at the city dump, and that's the turf of the dreaded Steak Knife and his gang. Steak Knife is rumored to have a collection of tails of his victims—and not just mouse and bird tails either! Soon the brothers are up to their whiskers in danger. Will Marco and Polo return with the goods—and with their tails?
Author
Phyllis Reynolds Naylor was born in Anderson, Indiana, US on January 4, 1933. Her family were strongly religious with conservative, midwestern values and most of her childhood was spent moving a lot due to her father's occupation as a salesman. Though she grew up during the Depression and her family did not have a lot of money, Naylor stated that she never felt poor because her family owned good books. Her parents enjoyed reading stories to the children—her father would imitate the characters in Huckleberry Finn and Tom Sawyer—and her mother read to them every evening, "almost until we were old enough to go out on dates, though we never would have admitted this to anyone." By the time Phyllis reached fifth grade, writing books was her favorite hobby and she would rush home from school each day to write down whatever plot had been forming in her head - at sixteen her first story was published in a local church magazine. Phyllis has written over 80 books for children and young people. One of these books, "Shiloh," was awarded the Newbery Medal in 1992, was named a Notable Children's Book by the American Library Association and was also Young Adult Choice by the International Reading Association. Naylor gets her ideas from things that happen to her or from things she has read. "Shiloh" was inspired by a little abused dog she and her husband found. The little dog haunted her so much that she had to write a story about him to get it out of her mind.
