Ziva is a Maine coon cat who lives with the Freedmans. It\u2019s unclear what happened before she arrived there, because although she\u2019s sweet and calm with them, she finds strangers upsetting: \u201cZiva would leap like lightning. Claws out. Eyes blazing. Like she was guarding something only she could see.\u201d One day, Elsie arrives to stay with the Freedmans. (All the humans are depicted with pale skin.) Again, it\u2019s unclear what transpired, but the girl looks sad and doesn\u2019t smile or speak. Ziva doesn\u2019t hiss at Elsie, but sits quietly nearby, observing her. Elsie sleeps and the cat slumbers at the foot of her bed\u2014and in the morning, Ziva purrs when the youngster greets her. Eventually, they become friends. Gerstner\u2019s watercolor-style illustrations are well-executed and show a wonderful range of realistic cat expressions. The story is reminiscent of Chandra Ghosh Ippen\u2019s Argo & Me(2022), illustrated by Erich Ippen Jr., in which a child placed in foster care bonds with an animal-shelter dog, but here, neither Elsie nor Ziva has a backstory. Some readers may find this frustrating, but leaving these open to interpretation may effectively allow many young people to see themselves in Elsie\u2019s situation.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Ziva is a Maine coon cat who lives with the Freedmans. It\u2019s unclear what happened before she arrived there, because although she\u2019s sweet and calm with them, she finds strangers upsetting: \u201cZiva would leap like lightning. Claws out. Eyes blazing. Like she was guarding something only she could see.\u201d One day, Elsie arrives to stay […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":5256,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5255","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5255"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=5255"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5255\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/5256"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=5255"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=5255"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=5255"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}