i am a book thief. 
 this is not to say that i steal books from bookstores or libraries (although i considered performing a superheist at the morgan to get all their byron books with his notes in the margins) 
 but when i was twelve, i borrowed this book from someone. and i never gave it back. shocking, right?? even more shocking is that i do not regret it. "my" copy is fat, with sprouted, swollen pages soft to the touch, and has been read at least twenty times. the copies they sell nowadays have some sort of modern paper that make the book half the size of the one i have, and it looks anemic and sad. mine is a proud fat tabby, basking in the sun of my love. 
 yeah, that one got away from me, but i don't even care. i love this book, i loooove this book. i made alfonso and greg read this book, and both of them gave it five stars. why?? because it is great. it is a cat adventure story, how could it be anything but great? 
 i always describe is as a cross between the hobbit and watership down but with cats. n.b. - i have never read the hobbit, but i saw the cartoon with all the singing, so i feel qualified to make this comparison. 
 it is a quest novel like the hobbit; it involves adventures in the forest, in the towns of man, and underground (shudder). and it employs its own animal vernacular the way that watership down does. but it is about a cat, trying to find his missing friend. and there are giant killer cats with red claws. and intrigue! 
 i fell in love with this world for both the action sequences and the interludes of catworld mythology and history, which are very detailed and add a density to a story that, in my description anyway, seems like it is slight: cat looks for missing friend. that's like saying titanic is about a boat that sinks. but there is all sorts of wailing and lovemaking surrounding the boat sinking. and this is better than titanic by many leagues. 
 and it is not slight at all (despite what modern paper would have you believe) - it has interspecial relationships (not those kind of relationships, grosso) and stories within stories, and it is a cat coming-of-age story as well as an adventure story with battles. 
 seeing negative reviews on here kind of breaks my heart, so i thought i would drop my two cents up in the mix. most of my childhood memories involve me, eating plums, and reading this book. 
 hpr, etc etc.