Iris Grace - Arabella Carter-Johnson

'Ever since we came home with Thula, this precious magical kitten has
cast a spell over Iris. They sit beside each other as Iris paints, and
new doorways to communication have been opened, doors we had previously
feared might be locked forever.'

Iris Grace is six years old
and severely autistic. For the first few
years of her life she barely
communicated at all - she hardly ever
looked up when her parents walked
into a room, she rarely smiled or
spoke. Her mother Arabella despaired
- Iris seemed to be trapped in her
own world, unreachable.

Then
one day the family decided to get a cat,
Thula, with whom Iris had an
immediate affinity. She appeared to open up
and communicate with Thula
in a way that she hadn't done before.
The little girl who
seemed to be
lost in her own world slowly blossomed. Iris is an
extraordinarily
gifted artist who sees the world in a profoundly
vivid and visceral
way, and with Thula by her side, she will sit and paint
for hours.

This
book isn't the
story of a genius or child prodigy (although Iris
is
almost certainly
both of those things), this is the story of how a
remarkable bond
between a cat and a child saved a family.

Beautifully written, readers will be spellbound by the story of Iris Grace and her devoted pet cat Thula.