The Chinese Kitten

Two sisters. One summer at White Beach. A cat who might run away, and a mysterious Chinese kitten that isn't a kitten at all. Lucy and Dora Merrill spend a year navigating the small crises and big joys of childhood in 1922: will their pet Timmy survive the trip? What happened to the silver bear necklace lost in the woods? Who is this aunt sending them chess pieces? Edna A. Brown captures something precious about the texture of early twentieth-century American girlhood, the careful work of needlepoint, the excitement of packing for adventure, the way holidays mark time for children who haven't yet learned to count years in loss. This isn't a book with a dramatic plot. It's better: it's a window into a world where a family's love is expressed through permission to sleep in tents, through arranged cat-sitting, through the quiet business of growing up together.