“At home, I was the center of everything.” Wild Princess has it good and knows it. The words “She showered me with attention” are paired with an image of a pair of peach-colored human hands with painted fingernails giving Wild Princess a beauty treatment. One day some cardboard boxes appear, and “then the suitcases came out.” Wild Princess knows the score. “I wanted to go with her.” Terrified of being left behind, Wild Princess “did a very quiet thing”: An illustration shows the kitty stowed away in a packed suitcase. “Where was I going? I didn’t know. Maybe the city? Maybe the beach?” As it turns out—and here’s a twist readers won’t see coming—the suitcase is actually heading for a donation bin, as Wild Princess is informed by the possum who finds her there. Will Wild Princess make it back home? Much humor lies in the contrast between Wild Princess’s innocent remarks (e.g., “Tape had never been my friend”) and Fabiani’s truth-telling digital illustrations (one reveals that Wild Princess has mauled one of the taped-up cardboard boxes). A wry touch: While the bodies of Wild Princess’s human family are depicted in this book, their faces aren’t. After all, she is “the center of everything.”
