By Katherine Applegate
A boy whose family is sliding toward homelessness again, and the giant imaginary cat who turns up when things get hard.
Jackson's family has done this before. A few years ago they lost their apartment and lived in their minivan, eating cereal for dinner on the nights there was cereal. He's older now, he loves facts and science, and he has no use for imaginary friends. Which is a problem, because right as his parents start selling off their things again, Crenshaw strolls back into his life: a talking cat the size of a grown man who rides a surfboard, and only Jackson can see him.
It's the first novel on the trail, and a kind one to start with. Short chapters, plenty of white space on the page, and a giant talking cat who keeps the story from ever getting too heavy. Underneath the cat is the real thing: a family running out of money, and a boy who's tired of the grown-ups pretending everything is fine when he can see that it isn't. Jackson wants facts, not comfort, and the book is on his side about that. Applegate wrote The One and Only Ivan, and she brings the same light hand to something genuinely sad. It reads fast and never talks down to him.