{My thoughts} – Gaby is a sweet little girl that got dealt a terrible hand in life. A few years before the book starts her mom and dad split up and her dad leaves. A few months before the book starts her mother is deported back to Honduras when she goes to work on a day that she wasn’t scheduled. The place where she worked was raided and she was deported. Since her mom got sent back to Honduras that left her caregiver to be her father. He moves in with her and more or less treats her as an inconvenience. Not to mention he can’t keep a job and barely keeps food in her belly.

When her mom was deported she was originally suppose to go live with her best friend Alma and her family. However, her dad wouldn’t allow it. Instead he made her stay with him where she was hardly being cared for. Because of the way he was caring for her she was bullied and treated poorly by a number of students at school.

Gaby’s class takes on a project where they help out at a local shelter. She gets to write profiles for all the animals as a means to help them find their forever homes. While she is volunteering there with her class she becomes attached to a cat named Feather.

The majority of the book is about her time helping at the shelter and her desire to get her mom back home. I think that her helping at the shelter really helped her grow as a person with a better understanding of everything that’s going on within her life. The work that she does at the shelter seems to help her deal with all the pain from losing her mom.

I really recommend this book for any child because it’s a great book. It’s well written and given the current events taking place it really has the potential to hit home with many of the children reading it. It’s about being scared, about fear and about finding understanding in a situation that is beyond any one child’s complete understanding. I look forward to reading more books by this author in the future. ( )

Awww, yeah, these stories set at the Furry Friends Animal Shelter are excellent. By accident I read the second one first (Lety out Loud), but they stand alone nicely. Great characters, animal tie-in, hard issues dealt with on an 11 year old level -- Gaby's mom has been deported to Honduras, and she's living with the father she doesn't really know. Fortunately, she has a loving community, including neighbors who want her to live with them, a vibrant school, and bratty neighborhood boys. Gaby has a real gift for letting the world know about animals who need their help, and even when she mis-steps, she finds her way through. ( )

Gaby and her classmates start volunteering at a local animal shelter and a lot of the book is focused on the animals she meets there. Her home life is rough and Gaby worries every night about when she will see her mom again. A few months earlier her mom was deported due to the fact that she didn't have legal papers to be here. Now Gaby lives with her dad and he doesn't do the best job taking care of her. I am sure there are many kids who will be able to relate to Gaby and what she is going through. This book will appeal to kids who love animals. ( )

Loved this story! My daughter was entertained by it and it really brought up timely conversations about immigration, families, empathy and basic human rights.

Gaby's mom has been deported as she was an illegal immigrant. Gaby's father is distant. Gaby wants a home of her own. She befriends a cat who has also had a hard life and tries to keep her without anyone else knowing. This book opened the discussion of what happens to immigrants, what is deportation, and how one might enter the country illegally, Gaby is a character that one can relate to as she tries to hide how bad her home life is and cares more for others than for herself. ( )