I love how so many of DiCamillo's coming of age stories blend themes of friendship, grief, and melancholy so expertly. She writes of the feelings we experienced as children that we seldom had a name for, but always felt so fervently. I think a lot of children's media and stories try to skip around these feelings of sadness and emptiness because everything needs to be fun all the time, but I love these stories that attempt to depict honest and true experiences. We may not all have had encountered a caged tiger in the woods, but we definitely know how it feels to be trapped in a situation and struggle to find a way out.