[CALIBK12] Richie's Picks: THE CATS OF ROXVILLE STATION

[BudNotBuddy at aol.com]

Richie's Picks: THE CATS OF ROXVILLE STATION  by Jean Craighead George and 
Tom Pohrt, ill., Dutton, May 2009, 192p., ISBN:  978-0-525-42140-5
 
"A lady in a fur coat threw a fighting, hissing cat off a  bridge, got back 
into her car, and sped into the night.
"Rachet the cat splashed into the river.
"She felt the wetness, and hating it, reached out to claw this  enemy.  Her 
paw struck a stick, raked it for a better hold, and she was  swimming.
"An eddy caught her, swirled her shoreward until she felt  stones under her 
feet and ran out of the water.  Shaking her paws, she  four-footed it into a 
woods that edged the river.  When she was out of  sight of the bridge she 
stopped, shook herself, and frantically licked the water  off her sodden 
tiger-striped fur.  With her forepaw, she cleaned her ears  of the river water, then her 
face and whiskers.  The bruise on her ribs  where the lady had kicked her 
yesterday had been soothed by the cold water and  was no longer throbbing.
"When she was almost dry, she crept deeper into the night  woods.  Rachet, 
like all cats, found her way in the dark with the rods in  her eyes, which could 
take in the faintest of light, even starlight, and make  the night into day.  
Smelling dryness, she hurried to the fallen leaves  under an oak tree and 
frantically rolled in them.  Then, shivering with  loneliness and fright, she 
meowed in her baby voice to bring her  mother.  There was no answer.  Her world 
had changed."
 
Did you know that there is meaning in the way a cat holds its  tail?  That 
cats can have altercations through which the social order  is forever altered 
despite there not being any physical contact?
 
THE CATS OF ROXVILLE STATION is the story of Rachet the  cat and of Mike, the 
foster child  who longs for a cat his can call  his own.  As is Jean 
Craighead George's style, readers will come to  know all sorts of true and weird stuff 
about the animal characters as they  follow the action.  In this case, we 
learn about Rachet  and a half dozen other feral cats as well as the  other 
animals living in this corner of a suburban  neighborhood.  There is Windy the barn 
owl, Ringx the raccoon, Cheeks  the chipmunk, Fang the milk snake, Shifty the 
red fox, and Lysol the  skunk.  (No, the author does NOT give names to the 
neighborhood  mice and rats.  In this death-don't-have-no-mercy  environment, 
that would be akin to naming the individual chips in a bag of  Fritos.  
Nevertheless, we do learn gnarly details about the ability of  mice to reproduce on a 
scale that necessitates the use of exponents and/or  calculators.)

 
"Rachet rubbed her own personal scent on the buckets and boxes  to make her 
smell-trail through the junk.  To a cat the smell-trail was as  bright as neon 
lights are to people."
 
For that matter, death hasn't offered Mike much mercy,  either.  His mother 
died when he was three; his father died when he was  eight; and after a group 
home experience and a failed foster situation, he  came to live in a big, old 
house with Mr. and Mrs. Dibber.  The kindly  husband shared boating and 
baseball with Mike, but then he died, too.  Now  Mike is alone with the hard-hearted 
widow and she has no use for cats and little  praise for Mike.  
 
But like Sam Gribley from George's MY SIDE OF THE MOUNTAIN,  and Miyax from 
JULIE OF THE WOLVES, Mike is an observant and resourceful  adolescent -- a 
survivor -- who is determined to find a way through the  difficult hand he has 
been dealt.  His patience and determination is  the perfect match for a cat who 
has only known cruelty by the hands of  humans.
 
I have not paid a lot of attention to the feral cats who have  come and gone 
from my farm over the years.  In recent months there has  been a black cat 
that I have observed periodically: Sometimes I look out  the upstairs  window and 
see it wandering up or down the long  driveway.  Sometimes I go out to the 
barn at night to check on the  goats, and glimpse it bolting out of the hay room 
when I  enter.  I am happy to share the farm with cats in the same way  that  
-- I learned from this book -- the Egyptians welcomed and began  
domesticating these curious creatures four thousand years ago.
 
The past couple of days, when I see that black cat outside, I  find myself 
taking a second look and watching more thoughtfully.  Thanks to  Jean Craighead 
George, I have a newfound respect for cats -- the kind of respect  that comes 
from really knowing about something.
 
Richie  Partington, MLIS
Richie's Picks _http://richiespicks.com_ (http://richiespicks.com/) 
Moderator, _http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/_ 
(http://groups.yahoo.com/group/middle_school_lit/) 
BudNotBuddy at aol.com
_http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks_ (http://www.myspace.com/richiespicks) 


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