SOLO'S JOURNEY

by Joy Smith Aiken ‧ RELEASE DATE: Nov. 1, 1987

A terminally cute cat tale that uses up its nine lives in record time. In the world of Solo, leader of a band of feral cats who live near a subdivision, rabbits are ""hoppits,"" rain is ""water-down,"" cars (obscurely) ""rauwulfen,"" and death is ""Shadowland."" Solo, an abandoned ""kit,"" scampers his way to maturity and becomes ""Dom"" of his ""Quorum"" of ""bards"" and ""prills."" It becomes his goal in life to free his cats from the pernicious influence of the ""Owners"" who live in ""Owner dens"" with fat, sassy ""Tame-cats,"" and who bring ""offerings"" of garbage to the ""Great Fence"" near where the ferals patrol (occasionally a Tame-cat will escape with tales of Owner perfidy imagining: ""Banda would never talk. . .about how he'd lost his cobblers""). When a bulldozer rauwulfen appears in the ferals' field, Solo decides it's time to lead his hearty band westward, into the mountains; there they meet another band of cats, living free under the stars, and decide that life ain't all tuna fish and flea collars. Solo becomes Dom of the entire bunch--is even rumored to be ""the Great One"" long-awaited by felines--and starts a new order in the wilderness, a kind of pussycat Liberia: the old group's pecking orders are brought down, bards promise to help the prills with the dishes for a change, and Owners become a bad memory. True cat lovers will arch their backs, hiss, and turn to Paul Gallico's classic cat's-eye view novel, The Abandoned (1950).

Pub Date: Nov. 1, 1987

ISBN: N/A

Page Count: -

Publisher: Putnam

Review Posted Online: N/A

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 15, 1987

Categories: FICTION