Given that at one point I was consciously trying to read all the Newbery award winning books and that I have always considered prominent feline presences in literature a draw, I’m really not sure how I missed reading It’s Like This, Cat until now, but’s an omission I’m happy to have rectified.
Neville doesn’t compromise the authenticity of her teenage narrator’s voice an iota, but she nonetheless conveys more than he is explicitly aware of about the social structures he lives in (and which threaten to constrain his friend Tom). This adds depth that this adult reader certainly appreciated, but Neville is quite subtle about it — there are no omigawd-social-consciousness! hammers being swung around.
If I’d run into this in my early teen years, it might well have been one of those books I literally wore to pieces.
needs more demons? no.
Needs More Demons Or Not 