‘The Nine Lives of Travis Keating’ and ‘Tripping’

Odyssey. The word conjures up epic images of far-flung wandering. The most interesting thing about an odyssey, though, is the inner journey that can accompany travel, as is shown in two fine novels for young readers.

“The Nine Lives of Travis Keating” proves once again that you can’t judge a book by its cover. Travis Keating is not a cat, he’s an 11-year-old boy who moves with his father to a small town in Newfoundland for a one-year “experiment.” The winsome cat sketched on the book’s cover, head atilt, is one of a colony of feral cats in nearby Gulley’s Cove — a place the kids at his new school say is haunted.

Not that they tell Travis this directly; he overhears it after the school bully announces, on his first day, that no one is to talk to the new “townie.” The chapter titles in “The Nine Lives of Travis Keating” are numbers: the days left until the year is up and Travis can go back to his real home, where he had a best friend, where he was a star hockey player ... and where his mother died.

As the days count down, Travis is reluctantly drawn in to caring about the wild cats of Gulley Cove, and finds himself making tentative friendships in unexpected places. Happy endings don’t come easily, though, and he is tested by crisis after crisis. Narrated with wry humor from Travis’s point of view, this engrossing book explores the dynamics of school bullying as well as Travis’s personal journey through change, grief, and loneliness to a stronger sense of self.

Rainey, the 16-year-old narrator of “Tripping,” moves from a small town to Toronto, leaving her home, her friends, and her boyfriend behind. A school-sponsored eight-week study/camping trip seems to promise an escape from everything she hates about the big city — including her new stepmother. Imagine her surprise and chagrin when the driver of the expedition turns out to be a young man on whom she’s had a crush for weeks, and who seems displeased to see her as one of the six student travelers.