It's Like This, Cat

Dave Mitchell is fourteen, stuck in a cramped Manhattan apartment, and thoroughly sick of his parents' arguments. Then he meets Cat: a scrawny, smart-aleck stray who shows up at Crazy Kate's fire escape and somehow becomes the unlikeliest guide to growing up. Cat doesn't care about Dave's problems, doesn't need his therapy, doesn't even use a litter box. But dragging this feral creature home sets Dave's life moving in directions he never expected: into the path of a girl who reads poetry, into arguments with his father that actually mean something, into the chaos of city streets that feel less hostile and more like home. Emily Neville writes with the kind of sharp, unaffected voice that makes you forget you're reading a Newbery Medal winner. This is a book about how the things we take on accidentally often become the things that save us, and how a recalcitrant cat can teach a boy more about love than any number of family meetings.