The Drugstore Cat is a 1949 children's book written by Ann Petry and illustrated by Susanne Suba.

[5] Buzzie, named for his loud purring, is taken from the barn where he was born to live in a drugstore with brother-and-sister pharmacists, the Jameses.

[5][4] The kitten is sensitive about his short tail and frustrated that the humans can't understand his purring language.

[7] By 1949 Petry was already an established writer of adult fiction, but The Drugstore Cat, which was published the same year she became a mother, was her first attempt at children's literature.

[4] More recently, Althea Tait observed that her invention of phrases like a "lengthier temper" demonstrated "Petry's linguistic understanding of how the minds of children work.