Books > The Underneath

The Underneath
The Underneath
 
Cover By: David Small / Illustrated by: David Small
This edition: Hardcover, 320 pages
Availability: Usually ships within 2-3 days
Our Price: $17.99
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National Bestseller

Awards and Nominations

  • National Book Award Finalist
  • ALA Newbery Medal
  • ALA Newbery Honor Book
  • ALA Notable Children's Book Nominee
  • ALA Notable Children's Books
  • CCBC Choices (Cooperative Children's Book Council)
  • NYPL 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing
  • PEN USA Literary Award for Children's Literature
  • Virginia Readers’ Choice Award Master List
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Description

There is nothing lonelier than a cat who has been loved, at least for a while, and then abandoned on the side of the road.

A calico cat, about to have kittens, hears the lonely howl of a chained-up hound deep in the backwaters of the bayou. She dares to find him in the forest, and the hound dares to befriend this cat, this feline, this creature he is supposed to hate. They are an unlikely pair, about to become an unlikely family. Ranger urges the cat to hide underneath the porch, to raise her kittens there because Gar-Face, the man living inside the house, will surely use them as alligator bait should he find them. But they are safe in the Underneath...as long as they stay in the Underneath.

Kittens, however, are notoriously curious creatures. And one kitten's one moment of curiosity sets off a chain of events that is astonishing, remarkable, and enormous in its meaning. For everyone who loves Sounder, Shiloh, and The Yearling, for everyone who loves the haunting beauty of writers such as Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings, Flannery O'Connor, and Carson McCullers, Kathi Appelt spins a harrowing yet keenly sweet tale about the power of love -- and its opposite, hate -- the fragility of happiness and the importance of making good on your promises.

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    1. Kathi Appelt: Wise Words
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    2. Kathi Appelt: At the Movies
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    3. Kathi Appelt: Travels
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    4. Kathi Appelt: Talent
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How did you come to write this book?

Over the three years that it took to write this book, I dove into my past, including the animals and pets that I had known, people who had come and gone, and a mysterious place--East Texas--where I had lived as a young woman. The novel began as a short story set on a fictional creek, The Little Sorrowful, and grew from there. I think about the process as similar to making taffy. I had to keep pulling and twisting to bring it all to the page. And as I pulled, the story began to take shape until it became what it is today.

Learn more about Kathi Appelt
"A mysterious and magical story; poetic yet loaded with suspense."
-- Louis Sachar, Newbery Medal-winning author of Holes
"The Underneath is as enchanting as a hummingbird, as magical as the clouds."
-- Cynthia Kadohata, Newbery Medal-winning author of Kira-Kira
"Rarely do I come across a book that makes me catch my breath, that reminds me why I wanted to be a writer -- to make of life something beautiful, something enduring. The Underneath is a book of ancient themes -- love and loss and betrayal and redemption -- woven together in language both timeless and spellbinding. A classic."
-- Alison McGhee, author of the New York Times bestselling Someday
"Kathi Appelt's novel, The Underneath, reads like a ballad sung."
-- Ashley Bryan, Hans Christian Anderson Award Nominee and Three-Time Coretta Scott King Award Medalist
Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, December 2, 2008
...in her unceasing efforts to win freedom for herself and her handicapped sister. (Ages 12 up.) " 'The Underneath' (Atheneum, $16.99) by Kathi Appelt is a beautifully written but gut-wrenching book about an abused dog who befriends three cats. ...