Crenshaw

Crenshaw is Katherine Applegate’s 2015 middle grade novel about Jackson, a young boy whose family is struggling with financial instability, and his imaginary friend, Crenshaw, a human-sized cat with a fondness for bubble baths and doing cartwheels. Narrated by Jackson in the first person, the story explores the impact of poverty on family and community, the need to reconcile fact and fancy, and how to face the unknown and unpreventable productively.

Other works by this author include The One and Only Bob, Home of the Brave, and Willodeen.

The novel is divided into three parts. Relevant quotes from Ruth Krauss’s A Hole is to Dig: A First Book of First Definitions, Jackson’s favorite childhood book, provide epigraphs for each part.

The epigraph for Part 1 reads, “A door is to open” (1, italics in original). It speaks to what Part 1 explores: the re-emergence of Crenshaw in Jackson’s life. Jackson has just completed fourth grade when he sees Crenshaw surfing at the beach. The sight troubles Jackson both because he has not seen Crenshaw since second grade and because he does not think of himself as “an imaginary friend kind of guy” (8).