Bad Kitty Meets the Baby

May 1, 2011

In Bad Kitty's return, she attempts to answer one critical question: "What the heck is that thing?"

In the beginning was Kitty. She was alone, and she liked it that way. Dark times arrived with the stinky, leaking, omnipresent Puppy; Kitty reconciled herself to that travesty. But after Kitty and Puppy spend a brief and ill-advised time in the guardianship of Uncle Murray, IT comes home with the humans. It plays, it stinks, it drools; Kitty is sure it's a dog. When all her friends come over for a special round of Pussycat Olympics, they conclude IT is a New Kitty. (A Bad Kitty Screaming Temper Tantrum ensues). Will Bad Kitty have a change of heart once she learns the origins of the family's new arrival? Bruel's fourth long-form tale of Bad Kitty (Bad Kitty vs. Uncle Murray, 2010, etc.) offers his trademark spastic black-and-white illustrations in full-bleed and spots with plenty of baby and cat sounds in dialogue bubbles (translated into English where necessary). Uncle Murray's Fun Facts return with occasional chapters on cat climbing and getting stuck in trees. There is plenty of slapstick, a few silly dream sequences and the obligatory gross bits. An appendix on cat training rounds out Bad Kitty's Baby encounter.

Further proof that Bad Kitty can be good...especially in the eyes of her many fans. (Humor. 6-10)

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

July 1, 2011
Having survived previous indignities, Bad Kitty is in for the strangest event of all: the arrival of a new baby in the house. Kitty and friends suspiciously suss out the intruder until Kitty learns that, like her, Baby was adopted. Cartoon humor adds verve to the somewhat drawn-out narrative.

(Copyright 2011 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)