If you want to pick up a sappy and sweet animal story, put this book down. The Underneath may come off that way, thanks in part to its adorable cover, but it is much darker and dramatic than you realize.
Appelt follows two distinct stories in this book, set on the same land in the Louisiana Bayou, thousands of years apart.
The first follows a calico cat--expecting kittens any day--that has been abandoned in the woods by a family that once loved her. Scared and alone, she is not sure where to go until she hears the song of a lonely hound dog, Ranger--doomed to end his days on the end of a chain attached to a sagging porch. She is attracted by his "blues", and understands his song as no one has ever done so before. She decides the best place to have her babies is under that sagging porch. The only problem is that the porch belongs to Gar Face, an evil man who mistreats Ranger, and if he were to find Mama and kittens, would surely use them as alligator bait.
The second story is about Grandmother Moccasin--an ancient reptile forced to live over a thousand years in a clay jar--doomed by her own selfishness and hatred. Grandmother gives us an opportunity to meet the native people that lived a thousand years ago, and learn about their belief of shape-shifting. We also see from Grandmother all of the reptiles and birds that existed then, and still do today.
This is a very intense story. Very early on in the book, a major character is brutally eliminated, and there is no comfort that "everyone will be all right in the end". Not for the faint of heart, and even though I cringed through a lot of the events in the book, sadly, people and animals exist this way every day. Extreme animal cruelty and hatred is included in this book, and perhaps may be a book best to be read together, or kept out of the hands of more sensitive kids.
Appelt's lyrical writing style makes you feel like you're floating through the bayou, and her words are poetic. Most chapters are a few pages long, so short attention span is not a problem here. David Small does some wonderful illustrations here (he's a favorite of mine), but the cover is deceiving of the content.
I am actually quite surprised that this review has come out in support of the book. I will give one final word on this. All favorable reviews I have found on this book were written by adults. I have not been able to find one from a child or teenager.
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