By Michael Morpurgo
Lisa's kitten grows into a tom cat who wants the fields more than her lap, and one night he doesn't come home.
Lisa and Snug grow up side by side. When she was small he was a kitten who followed her everywhere, trotting a step behind wherever she went. Then he grows into a tom cat, and a tom cat wants the fields and the hedges and the night, not a warm lap. He starts staying out longer. He comes home thinner and later, and once he turns up badly hurt from a fight with something out in the dark. Then he doesn't come home at all. A cat is found dead on the road, and Lisa's family have to be the ones to tell her.
If you've ever wondered what a Barrington Stoke book actually is, this is the clearest example. The paper is cream instead of white, so the page doesn't glare. The font is designed to go down easy on the eye. Of the ninety-six pages, most aren't text at all, because Faye Hanson's pictures run all the way through. And the language has been pared back on purpose, so a five- or six-year-old can read a real Michael Morpurgo story rather than a watered-down one. Morpurgo reworked it himself from a tale in the very first book he ever published. For a child who's only ever been handed babyish books because the words had to stay short, that's a lot.