Old favorite publishes Bradbury work of '40s

Bradbury's new book combines his sci-fi work with social commentary.
By MEG JONES
KNIGHT RIDDER
"The Cat's Pajamas" by Ray Bradbury ( Morrow, $24.95).
MILWAUKEE -- A black kitten cleaning himself in the middle of a road nearly causes an accident and ends up creating a tug of war between two cat-loving motorists. The male and female motorists jump out to lay claim to the bathing feline, one grabbing the tail, the other the whiskered end, each refusing to part with the cat.
In this short story by Ray Bradbury, the motorists carry the gamesmanship almost to a Solomonic conclusion before deciding to let the cat choose its next owner.
"The Cat's Pajamas" is a collection of previously unpublished Bradbury stories from the 1940s and '50s, back when Bradbury was making a name for himself penning popular science fiction like "The Martian Chronicles," interspersed with stories written in the last year or two. While the tales from decades ago hold up well, the newer stories sometimes miss their mark.
Classic Bradbury
A few stories hew to Bradbury's title as a fantasy writer -- such as "A Matter of Taste" about the landing of a human spaceship on a distant planet, told from the viewpoint of one of the planet's inhabitants, a 7-foot-tall beneficent, mind-reading spider, and "Sometime Before Dawn," about time travelers who already know of the dark future that awaits them.
But many of the stories are like the titular tale: sweet, funny or thought-provoking. Among the latter are two stories, both written in the 1940s, that put an interesting spin on race relations.
Racial commentary
"Chrysalis" is about a black boy, who visits the beach every day to get sunburned so his skin will turn white, and the sunburned white boy he meets whose skin becomes darker as they spend the summer together. The beachside hot-dog-stand-operator, who refuses to serve the black boy, later refuses to sell hot dogs to the tanned white boy, mistaking him for someone who isn't allowed to eat food at a spot that serves white people.
"The Transformation" is about a white man abducted by a group of white men in the South. The white man has raped a black woman, an offense punishable by lynching if the colors of their skin were reversed. After the woman drowns the white man's baby, the men exact their justice by tattooing the man black.
Either story would be just as powerful if written today, but they're more poignant when seen through the prism of the time when they were written.
Bradbury still writes great stories, but it's his older tales that shine in this collection.