"The tale that follows is pretty outrageous," the second sentence of the delightful The Cat Who Saved Books promises. Indeed, high school student Rintaro Natsuki, already an orphan, has now lost his beloved grandfather. Rintaro is a hikikomori--a shut-in, only comfortable in grandpa's secondhand bookstore--unable even to go to school. He's supposed to be packing up in preparation for living with an aunt he barely knows. But over the 10 days before the moving van is scheduled to arrive, Rintaro will prove to himself that he is stronger than he ever thought, thanks to a talking ginger tabby cat named Tiger.
"I need your help," Tiger repeatedly insists to Rintaro. Presented with three labyrinthine challenges to solve, Rintaro must set free a career reader's neglected books (57,622 finished thus far) imprisoned in locked cabinets, convince the director of the Institute of Reading Research to stop cutting and summarizing books, and persuade the president of the world's number-one publishing company that maximizing sales should not be the World's Best Books' only goal. Every (unsuspecting) hero needs a sidekick, and Rintaro is reluctantly, albeit happily, surprised to get assistance from class president Sayo Yuzuki, "a strong, no-nonsense type" who's been delivering Rintaro's schoolwork as his absence continues. When Tiger returns an unexpected fourth time seeking aid, Sayo will be the reason Rintaro must confront "the gap between idealism and reality" and restore order--literally.
This empowering Bildungsroman, written by Sosuke Natsukawa, a Japanese doctor, and smoothly translated by Louise Heal Kawai, manages to be both whimsical and wise, revealing Rintaro's superpower is imbedded in his love of books. --Terry Hong, Smithsonian BookDragon