The Last Free Cat by Jon Blake

This book is for all you cat lovers out there.

The setting of this book is a world controlled by a powerful company with a powerful dictator in which people are closely controlled in a similar way to George Orwell's 1984. The big difference is that cats have been banned except for those sanctioned by the State and the value of each legal cat is over $100,000. To scare people off, propaganda tells the people that cats are carriers of HN51, a cat flu that can kill. Very few people have even touched a cat and their mystique grows. One day Jade, a teenage girl finds a cat in her backyard and keeps it under penalty of death to her mother if she is discovered. The inevitable happens and Jade flees on the road with the cat Feela, and a teenage boy Kris, trying to get to Ireland where cats are still allowed. The adventure of the escape is breath taking and the ending will surprise you and have you thinking long after you have finished.

Issues of state control, the right to protest and the simple pleasure of keeping a cat are covered in this very readable novel for intermediate and secondary school students.

Reviewed by Bob

Published by Hodder Children's Books (2008)