Klibans Cats. Postcards book

Kids who had never read so much as one pirate's obituary in their lives were suddenly turning pages with their tongues, ravening for more. Librarians were stunned to find that science-fiction books were not only being borrowed in the tens of thousands, but stolen and never returned! "Where have we been?" the librarians and the teachers asked each other, as the Prince kissed them awake. "What's in these books that makes them as irresistible as Cracker Jack?" The History of Ideas. The children wouldn't have said it in so many words. They only sensed it and read it and loved it. The kids sensed, if they could not speak it, that the first science-fiction writers were cavemen who were trying to figure out the first sciences-which were what? How to capture fire. What to do about that lout of a mammoth hanging around outside the cave. How to play dentist to the sabre-tooth tiger and turn him into a house-cat. Pondering those problems and possible sciences, the first cavemen and women drew science-fiction dreams on the cave walls ...»