Reviews: (by author)

Alder, C.S. The No Place Cat. NY: Clarion, 2002. ISBN 0-618-09644-2. $15.

Twelve (going on thirteen) year old Tess takes off for her mother's house when her little step-sister Annie wrecks her school project and neither her father nor her step-mother seems to care. The journey is much longer on foot than it ever seemed by car, and during the two-day tramp and overnight camping, Tess is adopted by a stray cat which she finally picks up and carries with her.
Life with mother is lonely. Though she loves her daughter in her easygoing way, Mom is off at work or play, Tess is in the way, and the cat, with which Tess increasingly bonds, is not allowed in Mom's house. Friend Ria helps Tess and the cat survive, but when Ria's trigger-tempered father throws the cat out, and Mom's abusive boyfriend harasses Tess, the girl is happy to be taken back to her father and step-family, where the cat is allowed to stay. The cat creates a empathy between Tess and her stepmother, and both Tess and the cat finally feel they have a real home.

This book explores the ambivalent emotions of an early teen coping with her parents' divorce and would be helpful for any child undergoing a similar experience. Tess's identification with the cat's plight offers a bridge to understanding her own emotions. Sensitively expressed through her own thoughts and her conversations with others, Tess's development from feeling unwanted and a stranger to someone who belongs and feels part of a new family is charted with realistic detail.

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