Ratha's Creature by Clare Bell

I've been meaning to review Ratha's Creature by Clare Bell (currently reissued by Imaginator Press) for nearly a year. Sheila Ruth sent me a copy, and I planned to read it last summer--and I did, partly, but you know how books sometimes get interrupted, over and over? That was this book.

Ratha is a prehistoric big cat, and one who can talk. Only the Named clan of cats can do this, and they're the ones smart enough to keep their own herds of prey. Ratha starts out in the series a young, headstrong cat, and she is fascinated with fire. After a forest fire destroys her clan lands, she gets into an altercation with her clan's leader and ends up in exile. The world isn't anything like what she's been told, though, because she finds another cat--one of the Un-Named, those who only think as animals--who can talk. Who can talk to her. And her life will never be the same.

Ratha's Creature is the first in a series. I think it has enough interest to hold both middle grade and young adult readers; I'd pick it for a bridge book for that in-between time, when kids are settling in to reading all fantasy or all nonfiction or whatever, because the societies of the cat clans and the idea of a cat that can talk brings something for both groups.

I had a review copy provided by Imaginator Press for this post. Thanks, Sheila!