A Home for Hairyby Maureen Ulrich, Illustrated by Brenda BlackburnPublished by Flatlands PressReview by Shelley A. Leedahl$24.99 ISBN 9781069113511 What I know about Saskatchewan’s Maureen Ulrich is that she understands how to engage readers, her genres and subject matter are varied, and her children’s picture books—ie: Sam and the Big Bridge, which I previously reviewed—are delightfully heartwarming. Ulrich, a former teacher, recently released another moving story for young readers. A Home for Hairy is a softcover featuring a foul-breathed cat (Hairy) with low self-esteem, and Alison, a busy healthcare worker and weekend-warrior (aka adventurer) who takes a chance on fostering the scruffy-looking feline at the animal shelter, and welcomes him into her life. Though Hairy’s weekdays are spent inside young Alison’s brick apartment building while she’s at work or reading medical texts and crashing, exhausted on her couch (the illustration for this page shows her asleep on her couch with phone in hand, kitty litter escaping the cat box, and household chores undone), he enjoys “watching the world go by” from his windowsill perch, and during the weekends he and Alison get up to outdoor adventures like hiking, canoeing, and, when winter blows in, snow-boarding. These are daring and questionable…