The Cat At The Wall

The Cat At The Wall by Deborah Ellis, 152 pages

Clare was a girl living in Bethlehem, PA, until the day she died and ended up as a cat in Bethlehem in Palestine.  As a cat she understands what everyone else is saying but no one pays much attention to her.  The story fluctuates between her current life as a cat and her remembering her previous life as a girl.  When she was a girl she wasn’t really a very nice person, aggravating her teacher, throwing tantrums at home and picking on her sister and other kids at school.  As a cat, she is witnessing a possible tragedy unfold, with two Israeli soldiers taking over a Palestinian home to spy on the neighborhood.  No one is home in the house except for a seven or eight year old boy.  This seemed to be a good portrayal of the conflict in Palestine today and a good journey of self-analysis for Clare.  Overall, I thought this was a good story but felt a little unresolved at the end.  This would appeal to a wide variety of upper elementary kids.