The Goat

Kid doesn’t want to leave Toronto and her real, actual cat to come to New York to look after a dog called Cat. But her mother’s play is opening on Broadway, and she has no choice.

Then she discovers the rumour about the mountain goat that lives in the building, and – along with a boy called Will, who is afraid of windows – she sets out to discover whether the rumour is true.

This is a humorous, warm, surreal and very American-feeling novel, which hosts a large cast of quirky adult characters alongside the two children whose story is at its heart. Everyone in the apartment building that Kid moves into is in search of something, and all of them are affected in some way by the mountain goat that is rumoured to live on the building, surviving on cedar bark and wheatgrass.

Surprising, tender and engaging: it’s exciting to read a book that departs in so many ways from the conventions of British children’s literature.