A children's book in French

Hi there,

I'm coming here in search for a children's book that I *might have* read when I was about 5 or 6 (I learned to read alone very early).

My memories are so fuzzy about it that I'm not even sure if this book actually exists, or if I only imagined the story myself, or even just dreamed about reading this story back then.

I'll try to summarize every info I can.

France, in the late 90s. Probably circa 1996-1998.

I have no idea if that was a translation of an English or American book, or purely French. Both are common in children's books here.

An illustrated children's book for very young readers, with very little text and a lot of images. It probably was hardcover.

The main character was a female cat depicted in anthropomorphic way, as in many children's stories. She was standing like a human, wearing clothes, living in her own house...

What I remember of the "plot" was that this cat lived next to a forest that had some sort of magical abilities (the forest had). At some point, a sort of spell was unleashed on the cat, and she started changing into a deer, which in this universe was apparently still a "wild" (not anthropomorphic) animal. I clearly remember the cat having deer antlers growing on her head and being desperately sad about this transformation, becaus "now she will have to leave her house and go live in the forest". This specific sentence and image are what got strongly written into my memory, as I really felt for the cat in this situation, because well, I was a very stay-at-home kid and having to leave my house forever was such a terrible thought. There really was a sense of ineluctability that hit me.

How and why this spell unleashed on the poor cat, I can't remember exactly.

I do think there was some "karma" vibe in a children's story way, like the cat did something bad to an inhabitant of the forest, or something unfair, and the big bad Fate came to strike back with this sorcery. But I'm not sur at all about this.

How was it ending, I'm not sure either. I do think that it had a happy ending, like the cat amended for whatever bad thing she did and managed to stop the deer-morphing process and get back to live happily in her home, now enlightened with some morality typical with children's stories.

One other thing that I strongly remember about this story, is that as with many stories I enjoyed as a kid, I wanted to "play" them with my toys afterward. Like, going through all the story over again but not by reading it, by playing the different characters, etc.

I remember asking my dad to make a human-like cat shape with modeling clay so I could have the main character to play, and building her house in a cardboard shoe box in which I cut the door, the windows, etc, and draw furnitures and stuff into it.

I could have dreamed all of this as well.

But what tends to indicate that this might all be real is that I still have the cardboard shoe box house in my attic somewhere. It's very crude and it could be just a toy house built for any other reason, but I'm pretty much sure this was the one I wanted to play this specific story.

I do have some fuzzy images of what the illustrations in the book actually looked like.

The style was rather "realistic" but with a strong faery tale vibe, like, very detailed but only in a soft way.

I'm really struggling to find the words to describe it better.

Sooooo, yeah, that's pretty much it. I'll try to find out some drawings and children's book artwork that could match what I remember of the illustrations of the book itself, but so far I didn't manage to find anything resembling. I'll keep trying and update this thread along.