Strays (review)

"I know my parents are dead," thinks Ted tiredly, "but going over and over it isn't going to help." To be honest, even before their deaths his parents were so absorbed in their animals and their pet store business, which was assumed to be Ted's future as well, that they were pretty poor parents to him anyway, leaving him to gain most of his emotional education from animals, whose speech he can magically understand. Now he's a sixteen-year-old foster kid under the care of a martinet foster father and weird and troubled foster mother; fortunately, he begins to learn the rules of human pack life from his new foster brothers and their friends. This is a fresh and imaginative departure from the conventional foster-home tale: Ted's not getting rescued by loving adult attention but educated by the experiences of his peers, who know better than any outsider what it takes to make it in the situation he's landed himself in. That's a direction eminently suited for Koertge's brisk and unsentimental humor, and Ted's gradual acquisition of the ways of young humans is warmly told, with his rough-and-tumble friendships with his foster brothers believably depicted. The supernatural touch of Ted's animal communication adds interest, but it also serves as a marker for his misfired socialization, since his understanding of animals has come at the expense of an ability to communicate with people. Ultimately, this is a strongly hopeful tale wherein socialization by peers is given importance and honor, an approach that will be valued by YAs whose friends are what get them through the day.