A Seal in the Family

Steve Pitt is a Toronto-based freelance writer and an award-winning journalist. He has written many young adult and children's books, including Day of the Flying Fox: The True Story of World War II Pilot Charley Fox.

Things are getting crowded for Teelo the cat. He lives in a cabin on a
tiny island off Canada’s west coast. Teelo shares his home with a
human named Victor, a terrier named Terry, Sylvie the snake, Bonaparte
the parrot, and Ruby the rooster who has a harem of four hens. Just when
it looks as if everyone has finally settled in comfortably, a strange
noise comes from the beach. A lost baby seal has arrived on the doorstep
looking for food and shelter. When the seal pup’s mother fails to
claim her baby, Victor names the seal Lucille and lets her move into the
bathtub. Teelo and Victor soon find out that there is more to raising a
baby seal than anyone expected. Not only do they have to feed the pup
day and night; they also have to figure out how to teach Lucille to swim
so that she can eventually return to the sea.

As in A Cat in a Kayak (1998), Maria Coffey and Eugenie Fernandes’s
first collaboration, A Seal in the Family’s story is based on a real
event involving Coffey, who lives on a Pacific Coast island. The author
builds on the true story by having Lucille interact with a menagerie of
other zany animals. A small biography of the “real” Lucille is
included at the back of the book. Fernandes’s artwork is so vibrant,
it seems to jump off the printed page. Recommended.