Feral.

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

The outside world intrudes on a feral cat and a street kid, both denizens of a subway station and its surrounding tunnels. Little Cat has to contend with the two-legs on the subway platforms, the occasional slobber-bark (dog), as well as the bare-tails (rats) which inhabit the tunnels. Con, but known to the cat as Candlewax because his clothing has absorbed the odour of the stolen candles he sells to survive, must avoid the police while resisting being more drawn into the turf war between two feral-like gangs, the Nightsiders, who have claimed the subway stop, and the Westside Crew. The newcomer in Little Cat and Con’s lives is Katherine, 16, who is dating a member of the Westside Crew against her mother’s wishes. When Katherine sees Little Cat, she decides to capture her and take her home. However, to satisfy a school photography assignment, Katherine incorporates making a visual record into her attempt to catch the wary cat that she is luring with crunchies (cat food).

Narrated from the perspective of Little Cat, Feral is strongest and most engaging in those sections in which the feline is directly involved in the action as opposed to those parts wherein the cat is simply a spectator to events involving the two-legs or when she is a mute confidante to either Katherine or Con’s musings. Cooke’s use of cat-centric vocabulary is very effective. Feral’s "happy" ending is achieved at the cost of the life of one of the book’s principal characters. Recommended.