Alfie the Doorstep Cat

Alfie the Doorstep Cat by Rachel Wells is a story for 11 year olds told by a cat who has just lost everything.

What happens

Alfie is a lap cat and very proud of it. Warm lap, food from a tin, a bit of fuss. He's never really had to hunt for anything in his life.

Then Margaret dies. She'd had him since he was a kitten and she was the only human he properly knew.

He's curled up on her favourite chair when her daughter and son-in-law start deciding what to do with him. They've got dogs. They settle on a shelter.

Alfie has heard what other cats say about shelters. He isn't going.

So he says goodbye to an old neighbour cat called Mavis, takes one last look at the patch of carpet he wore out as a kitten, and walks off into the dark.

The first night is grim. He sleeps in a dusty shed and gets his head swiped by a big black cat who was there first. He catches a mouse, which he'd normally be far too grand for, and it tastes almost delicious because he's that hungry. Then a car misses him by a whisker.

You hear all of this from Alfie himself, and that's what makes it. He's vain (he thinks he's handsome and charming, and he might have a point). He puts his paws over his ears when the humans talk about him. He'll tell you exactly how unfair it all is.

That mix of funny and sad runs right through. One minute he's practising his bounding to cheer himself up. The next he's looking at the stars wondering whether Margaret can see him.

A word about the opening chapters, because there is a great deal of loss in them. Margaret dies before the story really gets going and Alfie is in the house when she's found. His cat sister Agnes had died the year before that. The other cats talk about shelters as somewhere cats don't come back from.

None of it is hidden or softened, and it's all there early rather than sprung on you later.

If your child gets very upset about animals being alone or poorly, that first stretch might be too much. If they're the sort who has a cry at a sad bit and then needs to know the animal will be all right, Alfie is lovely company and he is a survivor.

What to read next

Still thinking about him at the end? A Cat Called Alfie catches up with him three years on, settled on Edgar Road with families of his own and quite unable to stop himself watching a new one move in next door.