Toes
Published by HarperCollins
Synopsis

When a litter of cats is born into the McDonahue family, one kitten stands out from the rest. Intelligent and aptly named, Toes has seven toes on each foot. The other kittens tease him and refuse to include him in their games. So one night, a lonely Toes flees his house and takes refuge in a strange basement, where a struggling musician named Sebastian eventually finds him. It doesn’t take Sebastian long to realize that this is no ordinary cat. As he grapples with his own insecurities as a violinist, Sebastian learns from Toes that the most beautiful duet can be the one made from true friendship.

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  • "Seidler, writing in his Wainscott Weasel mode, has delivered an excellent, if melancholy, realistic story of a special friendship. You cat lovers will be in heaven."
    - Kirkus Reviews
  • "This wryly amusing title offers readers many delights (who knew mice were addicted to mindless rhymes?) and diversions (Toes’s ingenious efforts at surviving in a human world). Best of all, however, is its stirring celebration of the power—and incalculable value—or selfless friendship."
    - Michael Cart, ALA Booklist
  • "In his books for middle readers, especially animal fantasies such as A Rat’s Tale, The Wainscott Weasel, and now Toes, Tor Seidler does with words what master illustrator Chris Van Allsburg often does with pictures. He creates alternate worlds that are rooted in everyday reality but tweaked just enough—lent an animal’s or a solitary child’s perspective and nudged back a few decades—to give them an aura of otherness and timelessness. In this lovely novel, the hero, Toes, a freakishly intelligent, music-loving, seven-toed cat . . . fetches up in the basement of a lonely, out-of-work violinist, with whom he forms a mutually beneficial friendship. Both of them like “heartrendingly sad” music, but also know that “in a funny way it was the sadness that cheered them up.” That captures the tone of Seidler’s gentle, poignant, funny tale perfectly."
    - Washington Post Book World
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