Description
Walking through the misty Florida woods one morning, twelve-year-old Rob Horton is stunned to encounter a tiger—a real-life, very large tiger—pacing back and forth in a cage. What’s more, on the same extraordinary day, he meets Sistine Bailey, a girl who shows her feelings as readily as Rob hides his.
As they learn to trust each other, and ultimately, to be friends, Rob and Sistine prove that some things—like memories, and heartache, and tigers—can’t be locked up forever.
‘A multifaceted story with characters who will tug at readers’ hearts. Rob and his father moved to Lister, Florida, to try to begin life anew without Rob’s mother, who recently died from cancer. The boy goes through his days like a sleepwalker, with little or no visible emotion. “He made all his feelings go inside the suitcase; he stuffed them in tight and then sat on the suitcase and locked it shut.” His sadness permeates the story; even the weather, with its constant dreary drizzle is sad. With the arrival of a new student, Sistine Bailey, Rob’s self-contained world begins to crumble. He and Sistine are both friendless and victims of the cruelty often shown outsiders at school. When the boy finds a caged tiger in the woods, he recognizes a similarity between himself and the animal. Then the sleazy owner of the motel where Rob and his dad are living gives him the responsibility of feeding the creature, and Rob realizes he finally holds in his hands the keys to freedom. Quotes from William Blake’s “The Tiger” intimate themselves into the narrative and set the tone. It deals with the tough issues of death, grieving, and the great accompanying sadness, and has enough layers to embrace any reader.’ – School Library Journal
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