When the erudite Pasha (a three-year-old, male, white long-haired Persian born in Russia) and neurotic Poop (a two-year-old, female, gray British shorthair) are adopted by the exuberant Wilde family from a kill shelter in an American town called Fairview, the two cats look forward to a life as cherished companions. No sooner have they moved into their new home on Strawberry Lane than they're visited by the ghost Scaredy Cat, who claims dominance over the neighborhood and demands their obedience. If they refuse, he promises to ensure they're cast out and abandoned. Poop and Pasha swear to free the cats of the area from Scaredy Cat's tyranny by uniting those he has already tormented, but to do so they must discover his greatest secret. With this whimsical yet unnerving ghost story, Patterson and Grabenstein (the Max Einstein series) explore the secret lives of cats, capturing their mercurial natures and capricious behavior even as they cast the feline mystique in a new light. Herzog's b&w animation-style illustrations of the cast add a layer of whimsy, while underlying themes of human mistreatment and abandonment provide a sobering reminder of responsibility and obligation for pet owners. Ages 8--12. (Mar.)

Two shelter cats take on a mysterious puss with weird powers who is terrorizing the feline community. Hardly have timorous (and aptly named) Poop and her sophisticated buddy, Pasha, been brought home by their new "human beans" for a two-week trial than they are accosted by fiery-eyed Scaredy Cat, utterly trashing the kitchen with a click of his claws and, hissing that he's in charge of the neighborhood, threatening that if they don't act like proper cats--disdaining ordinary cat food and any summons (they are not dogs, after all), clawing the furniture instead of the scratching post, and showing like "cattitude"--it'll be back to the shelter for them. Will Poop and Pasha prove to be fraidycats or flee to the cowed clowder of homeless cats hiding from the bully in the nearby woods? Nope, they are made of sterner stuff and resolutely set out to enlist feline allies in a "quest for life, liberty, and the pursuit of purrs!" Cast into a gazillion very short chapters related by furry narrators Poop and Pasha, who are helpfully depicted in portrait vignettes by Herzog at each chapter's head, the ensuing adventures test the defiant kitties' courage (and, in some cases, attention spans) on the way to a spooky but poignant climax set, appropriately enough as it happens, in a pet graveyard. A-mew-sing fare for readers who sometimes feel like fraidycats themselves. (Adventure. 9-11) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.