Similarly as in other Salten's late books, the protagonist is an animal, this time a young female cat called Djibi.
In Renni the Rescuer, the main animal character had been a loyal servant to humans, but Djibi is an independent cat who chooses for herself where to live.
A boy rescues her from the river and takes to his home where a dog adopts her and feeds along with other puppies.
But when the boy rebuffs the cat, she leaves the farm immediately and, for a while, lives in the forest and kills pheasants.
After being wounded by a gamekeeper, she decides to take shelter with humans again, and a kind teacher, Salten's alter ego, adopts her.
The main theme of the book are the reciprocal interactions between men and animals, especially cats and dogs.
[3] The human characters, in contrast to the animals in the book, mostly have no personal names, but are referred to as "the teacher", "the farmer", etc.
The first English translation of Djibi by Raya Levin appeared in the United Kingdom in 1946, illustrated by Walter Linsenmaier as the original Swiss edition, but there is also an anonymous American translation, Jibby the Cat, illustrated by Fritz Kredel, which was published in 1948 by Julian Messner in New York City.
As quick as lightning, her sharp claws dug into the boy's hand, from which a few drops of blood began to trickle.
He staggered back in pain, while the cat, spitting, sat up on her hind legs and raised her paws in readiness for both defence and attack.
At the moment she appeared to him as a wild, excited enemy, and he was her exasperated, badly scratched opponent.
In the face of his angry attitude, she ran stealthily past him, and jumped out of the window before he had realised it.
Jibby appeared at the top of the steps just as the boy threw himself down in the hay and began to cry.
She ran up to her playmate, prepared as usual to settle in his lap and lay her head under his chin.
[12] In 2016, Raya Levin's translation was published also in the United States, illustrated presumably by Richard Cowdrey.