Puss in Boots

When I was a child, I loved the moment I went to bed as every night my mother would come and tell me or read me a story. One of my favourite ones was “Puss in Boots”. I still remember the cover of the book she read from, a hard cover red book with lots of pictures to illustrate the story.
Puss in Boots is the story of a young miller’s son who received a cat when his father passed away. He was very unhappy as he didn’t know what he could do with such a useless inheritance. All of a sudden he realises this cat is extremely bright. he is even able to speak! Being smarter than his master, the Puss only asks his owner to give him some Boots. The pet starts plotting a way to help his master have a more financially stable life. Having in mind this, Puss in Boots comes across the King and makes him think that his master, a marquis,is a very wealthy powerful man.
At a point, the Puss gives lots of land to the young miller’s son because he tricks an evil giant into transforming into a small mouse (which the cat immediately swallows!), thus making it possible for his young master to claim the land as his.
Later on the cat arranges for an accident to occur to the Princess, conveniently arranging for the young miller’s son to be there to rescue, earning the King’s eternal gratitude and, eventually his daughter’s hand in marriage.
I have never forgotten this story and I continuously asked my mother to read to me as a child as I really admired the cat’s wit and shrewdness to come up with all the tricks to deceive the giant and eventually end his cruelty and tyranny by trapping him and eating him. I also enjoyed reading about everything he did to allow his young master to raise himself from the condition of a poor miller’s son into a marquis.
I still remember my mother saying that stories like this had lots of teachings for us and in this case was to make us think that if we are smart and diligent, we can always improve our situation, like the young miller did.
Though he was extremely sad at the beginning of the book because his father hadn’t been very generous with him,thinking that he must have loved his older brothers more than he did to him, he realised that he was the one who had received the best inheritance of all.
For all of this: the story itself, the morals in the end and also because I really like cats, I can say this is one of my favourite stories.