Who's the Little Girl?

Her real name is Paulina; she was six
years old when the cover photo for My Enemy's Child
was shot.  Paulina lives on a farm in Sweden.
She has from 10 to 20 cats to play with, depending
on the month.  Since she lives with her parents,
grandparents uncle, aunt and cousins, she has
many opportunities to play with a variety of
animals besides cats.

Just like little Katrina in the novel  My Enemy's Child,
Paulina is everywhere at once around  the farmyard,
speeding through the barn, running  between the rows
of cows waiting to be fed and milked, tearing along the driveway, playing in her special
playhouse with her brother and sister, or other cousins, or helping her grandmother
bake something special for the farm workers to eat when them come in for the mid-day
meal, which is the best and biggest meal of the day.   Well, maybe breakfast is the
biggest.  But either way, there is so much food from her grandmother the farm
workers can never eat it all, though they try very hard, every day.

Paulina also likes to water her grandmother's many, many flowers, chase the calves and
generally loves life on the farm with her father, mother and siblings.  In the photo on the
book cover, Paulina is standing beside the typical Swedish fence, called a
gårdsgård...pronounced yash-gourd, it stands on the east side of her lawn, running from
her parent's front yard, back toward the lake behind her house.  Paulina likes to swim
in the lake with her parents, especially when the water is warm enough.  Sometimes,
Farmor (grandmother) comes, too to watch her.

There's a funny story about the mother cat Paulina is holding.  Several days
before her American cousin Jerry took this photo, the female cat had a litter of kittens.
One of the  tomcats that lives on the farm wanted to kill them all, as tomcats
often do.  But this mother cat fought ferousiously, fending off the male cat and saving
her kittens.  Unfortunately, she paid a very dear price, losing her right eye in the fracus.

When they finished designing the cover artwork, with a photo of the cat
WITHOUT her right eye, the artwork specialist at the book printing company thought
she had somehow damaged the cover's artwork and quickly fabricated a new, right
eye for the cat.  Much to the author's surprise, when he proof read the first printing, the
mother cat was intact.  Calling this to the attention of the conscientious woman at
the printing company, she immediately panicked, thinking she might have ruined the
author's story of a one-eyed cat.  The author reassured her that that was not the case and
when she graciously offered to put the cat's eye back again, he said, "...no, leave it.  It makes
a wonderful story to tell when I speak with my readers around the country."

And it has proven true, at book signings people love to learn about the one eye'd cat that had restoration
surgery in the printer's art room's computer.



In summer 2010, we were fortunate to catch Paulina...and cat,  together for a new photo.
Cat was unwilling to pose but a snack of salmon helped.
Paulina is now eight years old and cat is around seventeen.  Cat was going
to have kittens again and had assumed a new role in the barn, that of boss-cat.
She rules the roost, so to speak and no other cats dare made a move without her permission.