Paradise for Cats: A Return to the Rainbow Bridge

In 2012, Adrian Raeside introduced the idea of the Rainbow Bridge, a place where deceased pets go to wait for their owners to come and claim them after the owners pass away. The Rainbow Bridge: A Visit to Pet Paradise
focused on seven-year-old Rick and his response to the death of his beloved dog, Koko. And, while the 2012 book offered some solace to young former dog owners, what about owners dealing with the second most popular pet, cats? According to a study in 2021, over 58% of families in Canada own at least one pet, 41% own at least one dog, and 37% own at least one cat.)

Raeside’s response to that question is Paradise for Cats: A Return to the Rainbow Bridge that finds six-year-old Amy dealing with the death of her cat, Rocky, who, 10 years before Amy was born, had just turned up one cold, wet night on the family’s doorstep and was taken in. Buster, a dog, who was the Rainbow Bridge/Earth go-between in the earlier book, appears again in the present work (See Excerpt) and agrees to take Amy on a visit to the Rainbow Bridge, “but you have to promise not to tell anyone.” There, Amy finds cats, including Rocky, living the purr-fect cat life. Rainbow Bridge is home to all types of animals that once were pets, and, though they might have had predator-prey relationships while alive, here they all live in complete harmony (Cue John Lennon’s “Imagine”). Amy even gets to observe some former pet owners being reunited with their former animal companions. Raeside provides his young readers with a very upbeat ending following Amy’s return to her bed.

Dealing with death can be a heavy topic, but Raeside’s delightful cartoon animals on the book’s cover signal that his approach will be more lighthearted. If the style of the artwork seems familiar to some of the book’s adult readers, it’s because Vancouver’s Raeside is the creator of The Other Coast, a largely dog-focused comic strip that appears in over 200 newspapers and magazines worldwide.