Sunday 13 January 2019

Book ~ "Alfie and George" (2016) Rachel Wells

From Goodreads ~ As the residents of Edgar Road know, Alfie is no ordinary cat. Since his arrival in the street, he's made every house his home, helping this group of neighbours to become friends for life. 

But now there's a new cat on Alfie's turf - a tiny ball of fur called George. With no home to call his own, this little kitten is in desperate need. And little does Alfie know that they’ve got quite an adventure ahead of them to get him through this most difficult of times.

Alfie is a doorstep cat who has three families.  He lives with Claire and Jonathan  and their daughter on Edgar Road.  Polly, Matt and their children are their neighbours and Franceska and Tomasz and their children are former neighbours and visit weekly.  All three families are very good friends with each other, thanks to Alfie.

Alfie is in love with Snowball, a neighbour cat, and that love is returned.  Both are heartbroken, though, when Snowball's family moves away and they know they will never see each other again.  Seeing how depressed Alfie is, Jonathan and Claire get a kitten named George hoping to distract him.  Alfie takes to George right away and becomes his adopted father, teaching him how to be a cat.  Tiger, Alfie's best friend, becomes George's adopted mom and the rest of the cats in the neighbourhood dote on George.

Posters of cats are turning up on lamp posts which have the neighbourhood cats wondering what's going on ... is it a beauty contest?  In addition to figuring out what this is all about, each of Alfie's families have troubles that he is determined to fix.

This is the third in Alfie series (there are currently five in the series) and I enjoyed it.   Though it's part of a series, it works as a stand alone.  It is written in first person perspective in Alfie's voice.  We can see the conversations he has with other cats.  Plus he understands the conversations of humans around him (rather than "blah blah blah blah blah Alfie blah blah blah).  Though he can't talk back to them in their language, he does try to communicate in cat-talk and expressions.  As a head's up, though the story is about a cat, it does have mature themes.

I look forward to reading the others in this series.

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