Adapted from the version by John Ruskin, published in 1885,"" this is a fetchingly designed, cunningly illustrated little book (if you don't mind your cats with doggish snouts and bearish torsos). But the rhymed tale is sometimes difficult to follow (""The rats and mice scared/by this fierce whiskered crew,/The poor seven cats/Soon had nothing to do"") and the comical happenings themselves follow no particular course. Unlike such as Old Mother Hubbard, with its forthright verses and strong story line, this winds up as a quaint oddity, a period revival in quasi-modern dress.