54 pages • 1 hour read
Adam RexA modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Pig, Tip’s cat, accompanies Tip and J.Lo on their cross-country road trip. As a recurring non-human character, she is a motif that helps inform the theme of The Impact of Colonization from a Child’s Perspective. She also contributes to the novel’s humorous tone, foreshadows the Gorg’s weakness, and enables Tip and J.Lo to save the world at the novel’s climax.
As Tip discusses how the Boov colonized their world, she mentions the “Great Housecat Betrayal” (62), where cats defected from their human homes in flocks to the Boov. For a child like Tip, living alone with Pig as the last remnant of her mother, the betrayal of these human companions is a notable component of how the Boov took over human lands, houses, and belongings. Only later when trapped in the car with J.Lo and Pig does she find out cats love Boov because they smell slightly fishy. Moments like these—including the cat being named “Pig”—provide levity and contribute to the novel’s humorous and sometimes absurd tone.
When Tip starts to encounter the Gorg, Adam Rex foreshadows that cats might be the Gorg’s weakness. Gorg-made machines hunt cats and take them away upon the pain of death.