Ursula Dubosarsky’s novels are ostensibly for children. The main characters are certainly young, but the books’ historical events and slight plots might prevent them from being entirely appealing to the targeted audience. They are mysterious books—atmospheric, dreamlike, luminous, distinctive. Interspersed throughout, Dubosarsky includes photographs, snippets of news articles, and fragments of government documents that relate to her characters’ experiences. I always want to read her books and can barely put them down once I begin. They remind me of the strangeness I was aware of and trying to sort out in my own childhood.

The Blue Cat is set in Sydney in 1942 and focuses on Columba, an imaginative only child who lives with her parents, next door to two elderly twin sisters, the talkative, social Hazel and the retiring, harp-playing Marguerite. This is a time of fear and menace in Sydney. There are regular air raid practices, water rations, warships in the harbour, and American soldiers encamped in a local park. The Japanese have begun to bomb the northern part of Australia, and many frightened parents have sent their children to stay in the country, where it’s believed to be safer. Amidst all this, a steel-grey cat, a Russian blue, follows Hazel home one night. She introduces the animal to Columba, whose first thought is to pet him. He’s not at all tame, won’t allow himself to be touched or held, and, according to Hazel, was likely tossed overboard by sailors on one of the ships. He comes and goes as he pleases. At one point, he disappears, and Columba, along with her busybody, know-it-all friend, Hilda, and a new schoolmate, Ellery, go looking for him in Sydney’s Luna Park.

Columba’s fascination with Ellery, who is very clean, very white, very small, and unable to speak any English, is the focus of the book. He is brought to school each day by his formally dressed, bearded father. When, over tea one night, Columba tells her mother and Hazel of the unusual new boy at school, who speaks no English—indeed, who doesn’t speak at all—the women refer indirectly to the terrible things going on in Europe. This is the first Columba’s ever heard about “Jewish” people, and she asks the adults to clarify. It’s a religion whose people believe in Moses, says Hazel. But Columba believes in Moses, too, she says; they’ve learned about him in scripture class at school!—the baby in a basket among the bullrushes.

Hazel mentions the earlier arrival in town of another child, a little girl, also from Europe who had, for a time, received letters from her mother in a camp, but the letters had suddenly stopped. Columba, who’s been filled in on Hitler’s malevolence by Hilda, knows that the girl’s mother is dead. She wants to console Ellery, whom she has seen crying at school. She has instinctively known that his are tears of separation and grief. She decides to write a letter to him, in which she poses as his mother and reassures her “dear son” that she is saving money for a ticket to be reunited with him soon. Ultimately, Columba suddenly falls ill, and Ellery and his father mysteriously disappear. The unreliable Hilda says they’ve been sent to Holsworthy. (This is unlikely, as Holsworthy, an internment camp for Germans, was only in operation during World War I.) Later, Columba will receive a letter back from Ellery with the salutation “Dear Mother”, a closing—“From your loving son, Elias”, and words about his luck in having “a real friend”, Columba.

This is a story about war, displacement, loss, and friendship. Indirectly, it is also about the Holocaust. The novel ends with a poignant poem by Friedrich Rückert from his cycle of poems about the loss of two of his children, which Mahler later set to music as Kindertotenliede, Songs on the Death of Children.

I often think they have only just gone out
And soon they will come home.
It’s a beautiful day! don’t be afraid.
They have gone for a long, long walk.

Yes, they have only just stepped out,
And soon they will come home.
Don't be afraid, the day is fine.
They have gone for a walk, up the high hill.

They are just a little ahead of us
And are not coming home yet.
We will find them there, on that high hill
In the sunshine. ( )