Summary:There is nothing lonelier than a cat who has been loved, at least for a while, and then abandoned on the side of the road.
A calico cat, about to have kittens, hears the lonely howl of a chained-up hound deep in the backwaters of the bayou. She dares to find him in the forest, and the hound dares to befriend this cat, this feline, this creature he is supposed to hate. They are an unlikely pair, about to become an unlikely family. Ranger urges the cat to hide underneath the porch, to raise her kittens there because Gar-Face, the man living inside the house, will surely use them as alligator bait should he find them. But they are safe in the Underneath...as long as they stay in the Underneath.
Kittens, however, are notoriously curious creatures. And one kitten's one moment of curiosity sets off a chain of events that is astonishing, remarkable, and enormous in its meaning. For everyone who loves Sounder, Shiloh, and The Yearling, for everyone who loves the haunting beauty of writers such as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Flannery O'Connor, and Carson McCullers, Kathi Appelt spins a harrowing yet keenly sweet tale about the power of love -- and its opposite, hate -- the fragility of happiness and the importance of making good on your promises.
The Underneath was recommended to me by Valerie, the children's librarian at the Bernal Height's branch in San Francisco where I work. I was a little reluctant to read a book about kittens and dogs, but I trust Valerie and was not disappointed. What I thought was going to be a fluffy, feel-good type of children's book turned out to be so much more. The themes that run through the book, in my opinion, may be a bit mature for readers younger than 11. The main characters are the twin kittens, Sabine and Puck, whose mother befriends a tortured and chained up bloodhound named Ranger. Ranger's owner is the main human character, Gar-Face who is a horribly violent man who lives in the swamps, hunts alligators, and drinks...a lot. In a terrible chain of events started by the cute and curious Puck, Gar-Face captures Puck and his mother and attempts to drown them. Puck survives, but loses his and Sabine's mother. In her last breath she makes Puck promise to go back for Sabine and Ranger and save them from the evil Gar-Face. Interwoven into the story of Puck, Sabine, and Ranger is the story of the swamp creatures who are hundreds if not thousands of years old: the mystic moccasin/cottonmouth snake with an evil plan revenge, her friend the old alligator who plays a catch-me-if-you-can game with Gar-Face, the shape-shifting daughter of the mystic snake and her shape-shifting lover Hawk-man. Their story is one of love, jealousy, lies, revenge, and redemption that is told like a Native American fairy tale. Both story lines have a strong theme of being true to promises and learning from mistakes and always choosing love and family first.
There are a lot of dark themes running through this book: familial violence (as a young boy Gar-Face is beaten by his father), animal abuse (Gar-Face kicks and beats Ranger), scenes of death. This is definitely a book for older 'tweens', but a parent may be able to read it to a younger child without it being to scary or sad. The fact is there is always a feeling of hope throughout the book and that's what kept me hooked. I wanted the cute motherless kittens to win and save the poor abused hound! I really loved how Appelt was able to make me visualize these animals growth and motives. Lovely book!
More on the book:
http://www.kathiappelt.com/
http://www.commonsensemedia.org/book-reviews/underneath
http://books.simonandschuster.com/Underneath/Kathi-Appelt/9781416950585
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