CLAWS

Fourteen-year-old Cody is not afraid of anything. Certainly not the big cats at the Texas tiger farm where he has found a job and a hiding place. He likes Sunny, the owner, and his work with the animals. But Sunny’s brother is missing; the word is that she has killed him and fed him to the cats. The murder investigation not only threatens his job, it might reveal his true identity. Cody can manage even being in the cage with the white tiger Brutus, meanest of them all, but he can’t return to the monstrous mother who physically and emotionally abused him. The emphasis here is on the present action, not the unhappy past. Middle-grade readers will relish the gory, scary details of caring for big cats as they learn, with Cody, never to turn your back or run away from a tiger—of any kind. Just shout and say NO! It doesn’t hurt to take some action to help solve the mystery and to save your job as well. Solid book bait. (Fiction. 10-14)