Ava is a young girl who enjoys palindromes. She decides she wants a cat for her birthday and she decides the cat she wants is a little orange cat that is quite worse for wear who has turned up at the vet's office her mother works at. She works to creatively encourage her parents into bringing home Taco Cat.

I wish that Ava had educated herself more on cats before she got Taco Cat, or even after when she became upset about him hiding, and that they had put up missing pet flyers. She rushed into getting a pet because she was impatient about it. The story does have a happy ending (sort of).

There is also a secondary plot about her best friend making friends with a new girl at school and Ava's jealousy. This is pretty similar to the plot of the first book with Pip.

Note: I received a free copy of this book from NetGalley. I was not compensated in any other fashion for the review and the opinions reflected below are entirely my own. Special thanks to the publisher and author for providing the copy.

This is a delightful story that spoke to my cat loving nature.

I did not read the first Ava and Pip book, but had no problem following this story. This is a cute series for girls (9 - 12) about siblings, writing, being creative, looking for your stengths, friendship and more. The family loves words and language. They especially love palindromes, words that spell the same forward and backward. Their father is a playwrite and he encourages his daughters to use their strengths.

Ava is turning 11 and wants a pet, not any pet, but the honey coloured cat that her mother told them about. The cat had been brought into the vet's office where her mother works, possibly after being attacked by a coyote. It has been turned over to the Animal Rescue and Ava wants her family to adopt him. Her parents finally agree with her and Pip and they head to the Animal Rescue to adopt the cat. Ava names him Taco Cat, because of his colour and the fact that it is a palindrome. The problem is that when they get Taco Cat home, he is completely anti-social. He hides under the couch for days and Ava begins to think she has made the wrong decision about getting this cat. While this is going on, Ava is having a personal dilemma. Her BFF has befriended the new girl, Zara, and Ava feels that they are drifting apart. Not only that, but Zara has caused a rift between Ava and Chuck, another friend. With Ava not feeling great about everything, Pip tries to cheer her up and keep her occupied by creating a book called, Alphabet Fish. Ava writes the poems while Pip does the illustrations. As the story goes on, Ava has a lot of decisions to make, some of them tougher than others, but she learns about friendship and about doing the right thing. This is a great book for a school, classroom, or child's library.