By Ursula K. Le Guin
Four kittens are born with wings in a rough city alley, and their mother sends them off to find somewhere safer to live.
Mrs. Jane Tabby raises her kittens in a city alley full of dogs and cars and people who kick, and one day her four babies are born with wings. She never learns why. But she knows the alley is no place for them, so she does the hardest thing a mother can do and tells Thelma, Roger, James, and Harriet to fly away while they're small enough to slip out. They soar off over the rooftops to the countryside, where the air is clean and the mice are easy to catch. The woods turn out to have dangers of their own, including an owl that comes for them one night, and living wild and hungry is frightening work. Then two quiet children hold out their hands and offer them a home.
It's one of the loveliest first chapter books there is, and it's short, barely forty pages with a drawing on almost every one. A child who has only ever finished picture books can get through the whole thing in a sitting or two and feel like they climbed a mountain. The book rests on one idea, cats with wings, and Le Guin takes it completely seriously, which is exactly how a six-year-old wants it played. There's real feeling underneath the wonder: a mother who loves her babies enough to send them somewhere better, and four little ones learning to look out for each other. It reads aloud beautifully, and if they fall for it there are three more books waiting.