TO ORDER BOOKS FROM THIS BLOG

Unfortunately Pennycat isn’t totally modernized electronically. The ordering process will have to depend partially on snailmail. But it’s easy as 1,2,3.

Step 1. Send an email to pennycatbooks@gmail.com requesting an order form.

Step 2. You will get a return email with a PDF order form attached.

Step 3. Fill out the order form with check or money order made out to Pennycat Books and send it to the address on the form.

Your books will be sent to you via the US Postal Service.

Pennycat Books—those in the left hand column and listed at 5.00 each are also available at the outlets listed.

The softcover books in the right column are also available on Amazon.com.

To read an except from a Pennycat book, scroll down to the bottom of the cover illustrations. A piece from a book will be featured and changed every week or so.

A Book By Mark Sliwa

A Book By Mark Sliwa
This is the first book I’ve done through Pennycat that is not one of my own. Written by Mark Sliwa, it is a collection of stories of his travels in this country and abroad. The stories are humorous, nostalgic and written from the heart. It is not available through Pennycat but is carried by Second Chapter Books and the Twisted Vine, shops located in Ligonier.

Pennycat's Books

Below are pictured Pennycat books. The first two, Jeremy Willikins' Adventures in the Land of Little and Ralph, are book length stories. The others are collections of short pieces and poetry. All, I believe, are enjoyable.

The cost of each of the books is $5.00. They may be purchased at locations in the Ligonier area. At the present time, the following locations carry these books.


Mer Jo, 331 W Main Street, Ligonier, PA

Barb’s Country Store, 1534 Linn Run Road, Rector, PA

Compass Inn Gift Shop, Laughlintown, PA

Second Chapter Books, 139 E. Main Street, Ligonier, PA

Pages and Light Bookstore, 314 Georgian Place,

Somerset, PA


Jeremy Willikins' Adventures in the Land of Little

Jeremy Willikins' Adventures in the Land of Little
There’s nothing wrong with little; it’s just not as big as big. With this advice from Sage and additional wisdom from Willow, Lark, Ember and other residents of the Land of Little, Jeremy Willikins realized he had a lot to learn—and a great deal more to remember. Jeremy spent an entire day in the Land of Little, from early morning to the fading light of evening. He had no idea what or where the strange land was or how he had gotten there, but it was a place he would never forget and to which he was sure he would one day return or it would return to him.

Ralph

Ralph
Ralph is a very ordinary dog; a mutt, a cur. In performing a selfless act, saving a little girl from being hit by a truck, Ralph dies. But that is only the beginning of the story. In the Misty Place, a land in which he finds himself, he is given the opportunity of coming back to life and performing an extraordinary mission—that of bringing peace to the world as a new Superhero, Americur. Ralph accepts the mission and thus begins a series of adventures that bring Ralph—and the world—to a new realization and a new future.
PENNYCAT "COLLECTIONS" SERIES OF BOOKS

Each of these books is fifty-some pages long and contains poetry and articles on a variety of subjects.


Search For the Right Word

Search For the Right Word
The most recent in the Pennycat series, this book contains 14 pieces of prose and 3 poems

Clouds Above and Earth Below

Clouds Above and Earth Below
Clouds Above and Earth Below is the first in the series of collection books. It was compiled in 2009 and contains seven poems, three poems in the haiku style and nine articles.

for this brief time

for this brief time
For This Brief Time is also from 2009. It contains eight poems and nine articles.

celebration

celebration
Celebration was compiled in 2010. It consists of ten poems and eleven articles.

coping with life

coping with life
Compiled in 2011, Coping with Life contains four poems and eleven articles.

peace

peace
Peace, from 2011, consist of two poems and seventeen articles dealing with the subject of peace.

from the Penntcat book "For This Brief Time"

Since Before Kindergarten

When I moved out to the country a number of years ago, there was a small shopping center located in a town several miles from where I lived. In that center was a five and ten, the old fashioned kind that sold a bit of everything and in which the merchandise was either piled high on counters or hanging on racks. Toward the back of the store there was a lunch counter and every few days or so, when I had time, I would stop in for a cup of coffee and a doughnut.

One morning when I stopped, an older man was seated at the counter. I sat beside him and we fell into conversation. I learned that he lived nearby and had been retired for quite a few years. I had recently heard of a friend of a relative of mine who had retired after some thirty years of employment. He had begun his life of leisure but within six months had had a heart attack and died. This unfortunate occurrence led me to hear accounts of others who had met similar fates. All their working life these people had looked forward to retirement and shortly after reaching that goal had either died or been stricken with a serious illness that incapacitated them.

I was curious as to how the gentleman next to me, who had already passed a number of apparently successful years of retirement, was faring and I asked him how he was finding it. He told me that he was keeping busy and enjoying himself.

“You really like being retired, then?” I asked.

“I’ll tell you,” he answered, “I haven’t had this much fun since the day I was shipped off to kindergarten!”

The man told me that he had found many things to interest him. He was involved in woodworking and gardening and had recently acquired a metal detector which he used in investigating the grounds of the many farms in the surrounding area. The farmers knew him and gladly gave him permission to roam their acreage and in return he offered them anything he found. His prize finding thus far had been the rusted remains of a pistol from the era of the 1880s

I never saw the man again after that morning but my conversation with him stayed on my mind through the years. How was it, I wondered, that so many people have problems in their retirement while this man looked upon those years as renewed freedom and found so many interests to make them valuable? The older I have become the more I believe I understand. I do not know the details of the man’s life but I am willing to believe that in his years of employment he found a similar sort of joy. His retirement was not, for him, a means toward making a new life for himself but rather a means of expanding his enjoyment of the life he was already living. Many people live by planning for their retirement years. It is a future goal for which they long over a period of thirty or forty years in employment that they find disagreeable. Once retirement arrives, they find it is not the Utopia they expected. Often that disappointment is more than they wish to endure for long. Such people spend their lives living for the future. I believe the man I met at the lunch counter of the five and ten lived a different philosophy. He lived for the present. That was his secret.

As I grow older, I have found no better way to live my life than to attempt to emulate the philosophy of that man I talked to so many years ago in the lunchroom of the five and ten. I have found many things to interest me throughout my life and since I have reached the years of retirement I have found many more things to take my interest. I, too, have not had so much fun since I was shipped off to kindergarten.

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