Snow Kittens (We Love Animals S., #3)

by Jean Ure

Reminiscent of Animal Ark, We Love Animals follows two tween girls, Clara and Jilly as they go about trying to make a difference for the animals they encounter.

In the third installment, Clara and Jilly are surprised when the school bully, Darren seeks them out. Darren found a mother cat and four kittens abandoned near the golf course and he's worried they're dead. The girls go with him to check but only two of the kittens are still breathing. They take them home and nurse them back to health.

Surprisingly their biggest advocate is Jilly's mum who not only agrees to take them on but goes above and beyond to take the kittens to the vet and then commits to two hourly feedings. I kind of got bored reading it to be honest, two hourly feeds were the focus of much of the book - it just felt repetitive and frankly this book felt extremely long compared to the other two books in the series.

Also Clara is a brat and I've lost patience with her since the last book. I hated Daffy Down Donkey and Clara doesn't particularly redeem herself for me. Or maybe I'm getting too old to read tween fiction. At least in this book the girls actually bother to check with the experts about how to care for the kittens before bumbling along.

The storyline with Clara's mum's boyfriend just felt unnecessary. Although I did enjoy the bit about Trevor the turkey - a random turkey that gets left on the doorstep. Trevor ends up in the paper because he was stolen from a couple on the other side of town. When she sees the article, Clara's mum calls them to let them know they took the turkey to a haven. They don't answer so she leaves a message. Clara ends up speaking to the wife when she calls. This bit is pretty funny - the wife says please don't call again - my husband bought the turkey for our Christmas dinner but I got attached and I couldn't bear to eat him so I dropped him off at your place. Then she has to hang up mid sentence because he presumably comes in. Lol. Nice. And I liked that Darren gets behind the saving the animal crusade to a tiny degree. He buys animal rescue Christmas cards. Overall, it's an alright read but Animal Ark is better done. 2 stars.