Carmela's Outside - Earnest Painter

From her perch on her sofa, an old lady cat named Carmela is lured by the smells and sounds coming from the outside. She grumbles, but then she finds herself peeking her head out the door.

Poignant and funny, this story follows Carmela as she finally wanders outside and discovers that she has neighbors. Among them is Shakespeare, a curious young cat who, like Carmela, prefers to keep to himself, and Shakespeare’s mother, Mozart, a calico about Carmela’s age. She begrudgingly accepts encouragement from her roommates, Raku, who is just past kittenhood, and Anastasia, a somewhat self-centered beauty, who is, for the most part, a good friend. As her auntly affection grows for Shakespeare, she feels that something is amiss—a tension in the yard that threatens to come between her and her new young friend. Carmela decides to face the unknown alone in order to save this new friendship. While she musters up the courage to take off on her adventure, she reminisces with Tom Cat, Anastasia’s studly beau, about her own kittenhood. “We all were strays once” she tells him. 

Carmela’s Outside is the story of a sensitive and delicate curmudgeon who rediscovers what life is like outside of her sofa.