Highway Cats - Softcover

Lisle, Janet Taylor

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0142414859 ISBN 13: 9780142414859

Publisher: Puffin Books, 2009

Synopsis

A heartwarming tale that's great for fans of Warriors

When three kittens are thrown off the back of a truck, none of the highway cats knows what to make of them. They seem to have an appeal--an energy, even--that Khalia Koo, Jolly Roger, and the rest of the mangy, feral cats don't understand. But there are bigger issues to figure out when the bulldozers start coming, threatening to demolish their homes as well as several historical landmarks. Can three little kittens be the answer to saving the town?

About this title

About the Author

Janet Taylor Lisle was born in Englewood, New Jersey and grew up in Farmington, Connecticut, spending summers on the coast of Rhode Island. The eldest and only daughter in a family of five children, she was educated at local schools and at fifteen entered The Ethel Walker School, a girl's boarding school in Simsbury, Ct.

After graduation from Smith College in 1969 with a degree in English Literature, she enlisted and was trained for work in VISTA (Volunteers in Service to America). She lived and worked for the next two years in Atlanta, Georgia, organizing food-buying cooperatives in the city's public housing projects and teaching in an early-child care center. Catalyzed by this experience, she enrolled in journalism courses at Georgia State University with the idea of writing about the poverty she had seen. This was the beginning of a reporting career that extended over the next ten years.

With the birth of her daughter in 1977, Lisle turned to writing projects that could be accomplished at home. In 1984, The Dancing Cats of Applesap, her first novel for children, was published. Subsequently, she has published ten other novels.

Afternoon of the Elves, a 1990 Newbery Honor Book, has been translated into six languages. It was produced as a play by the Seattle Children's Theater in 1993, and continues to be performed in children's theaters throughout the U.S. In this book, as in others she has written, the author plumbs a borderland between reality and fantasy where imagination holds sway and the ordinary surfaces of life crack open to reveal hidden worlds.

Elves, fairies and exotic creatures make appearances in her novels but whether they are real within the story, or merely imaginative projections of her characters, is often left unresolved.

"I think of magic as that which is still waiting to be discovered," the author has said. "I put it in my books to remind readers (myself included) to keep a sharp eye out. The unknown is everywhere, all around us and lurking even in our own minds."

She lives on the Rhode Island coast with her husband, Richard Lisle, and their daughter Elizabeth, a college student.

copyright © 2000 by Penguin Putnam Books for Young Readers. All rights reserved.

From School Library Journal

Grade 3–6—When three tiny kittens are abandoned by the side of a busy highway, they miraculously make their way through the traffic and end up in a patch of scruffy woods abutting a mall, where a passel of feral cats eke out a rough existence. The kittens seem too innocent to survive, but somehow they have a redemptive effect on tough characters like cynical Shredder and the once-beautiful Siamese Khalia Koo. All of the cats notice that these strangers seem a bit "different," but when bulldozers come to turn the patch of land into a highway off-ramp, their magical qualities become apparent. Is it their mystical blue sparkle or their unworldly innocence that inspires the wild cats to work together to scare off the developers? It doesn't matter, because readers will focus on the fascinating, hard-bitten denizens of the dump. A mild, slightly wry sense of humor permeates this tale, from the descriptions of Khalia's business (she sells rat meat to a pet food company that makes a product called "Canned Rodent") to the inane conversations between the development-happy Mayor Blunt and his chief of staff. Illustrations in the form of dramatic silhouettes are sprinkled throughout the book. Recommend this novel to fans of Phyllis Reynolds Naylor's "Cat Pack" series (S & S) or other animal adventure books.—Eva Mitnick, Los Angeles Public Library
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About this edition

• Publisher: Puffin Books
• Publication date: 2009
• ISBN 10: 0142414859
• ISBN 13: 9780142414859
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 128