Bad Kitty (Hardcover)

~ (Author) "She used to be a good kitty..." (more)
Key Phrases: good kitty

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Kindergarten-Grade 3–This four-part alphabet book will appeal to youngsters who like their stories more naughty than nice. The tale opens with Kitty learning that her owners have run out of cat food and that her only options are healthy and nutritious edibles that run the gamut from Asparagus to Zucchini. She reacts by doing an A-to-Z list of mischievous things, like claw[ing] the curtains and hurl[ing] hair balls at our heads. When her owners return with food that ranges from An Assortment of Anchovies to Baked Zebra Ziti, Kitty realizes she must atone for her bad behavior with a final list of alphabetical deeds such as cleaning the cat box and washing the car. Some actions and items are a bit of a stretch, in particular sQuashes for Q and rhUbarb for U. While the story is packed with colorful cartoon illustrations that introduce each object, it is Kitty who steals the show with her slyly drawn feline expressions. Intended for slightly older alphabet-book fans, this offering will attract readers with a taste for the ridiculous.–Maura Bresnahan, High Plain Elementary School, Andover, MA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

K-Gr. 2. Ostensibly about a cat that turns bad when her family runs out of her favorite food, this is really a clever alphabet book for kids old enough to appreciate the way words work. When a calm kitty overhears her owner say that healthy food is now on the menu, the high-energy artwork shows the cat in paroxysms of horror set against a series of blocks containing pictures of vegetables, alphabetically arranged from asparagus to zucchini. That's when Kitty decides to become Bad Kitty: she "ate my homework . . . hurled hair balls at our heads." Kitty changes again after her owner returns with an A-Z assortment of good, if peculiar, treats, some of which may give readers pause (a donkey named Dave). But Kitty is happy with them all, and to show her pleasure, she undoes all her bad actions--in alphabetical order. The cat, with seemingly dozens of expressions, is the star, but other aspects of the amusingly silly illustrations have equal weight. There's so much going on here that kids will find lots to laugh about. Ilene Cooper
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 4-8
  
• Hardcover: 40 pages
• Publisher: Roaring Brook Press (September 15, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1596430699
• ISBN-13: 978-1596430693
• Product Dimensions: 11.1 x 8.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (38 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #19,759 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

  Popular in these categories: (What's this?)

  #42 in	Books > Children's Books > Basic Concepts > Alphabet
  #77 in	Books > Children's Books > Animals > Cats > Fiction

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Here kittykittykitty - Yowch! Get this for your 4yr old!, September 29, 2005

By	Anne-Kari "annekari" (Virginia) - See all my reviews

Omigosh do we love Bad Kitty in our house! I have Bruel's other book, "Boing!", which was age-perfect for my son at the time (great book for the 2-3 yr old set). Now Bad Kitty is out and my son is now 4 1/2 and he had made us read it to him 3 times a night for the past 5 nights. So far, still fresh - even to the adults!

I seriously can't believe I'm the first one to review this book - so I get to tell you to GO GET IT NOW, it's hilarious and sweet, it reinforces the alphabet ("Hey! That's a T, Mommy!") without being painfully 'educational' (read: boring), it's very inventive, but most of all: The illustrations are just wonderful.

We love our Bad Kitty.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Alphabet book with attitude, April 14, 2006

By	Primadogga (Topeka, KS United States) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

I found this at the library the other day and took it out for my kids - when we finally got around to reading it we had to keep it longer - the boys wanted to read it every night, take it to church, take it to school...

Basically this is a quadruple alphabet book - it goes through alphabetical lists of the foods Kitty doesn't like, the myriad of ways in which she was bad, the foods her owner bought to placate her, and the many reparations Kitty then made for her badness.

The illustrations are charming (I especially like the little fang kitty develops when she becomes bad), and the need to use the whole alphabet results in a broader vocabulary than is found in most children's books. It is wonderful for reading aloud (especially when the boys provide Kitty's sounds effects, e.g. "hack, hack!"), and the opportunities to point out someone else's outrageously bad behavior are very welcome to my pair of naughty small fry.

I think this book could be enjoyed by kids of almost any age, as with "The Stinky Cheese Man," which I started to read to my eldest at age 2; kids can enjoy quite sophisticated humor given a little background information, and they really like being "in" on jokes and sharing knowing smiles. My 6-year-old is a beginning reader and can use it to sharpen his decoding skills while laughing out loud.

The only reservation I have is that it does present as "yucky" several of the foods I try to feed my family...

Still, I am adding it to my shopping cart today; as noted by other readers, it is a charming gift, and I really should pass one on to my brothers (for their kids, yeah, that's the ticket)...

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Oh how we love this bad bad kitty!!!, November 3, 2005

By	Janann "kayak goddess" (gorgeous rural Iowa) - See all my reviews

Bad Kitty is a wonderful book full of great illustrations and wonderful vocabulary building text. This is such a fun book for adults to read, and the kids love it too! I can't help but laugh at the hilarious pictures, and my kids can't quit giggling as we read it. This book is a must for anyone who lives with a "bad kitty", as we do. But it is a must for everyone else too. Nick Bruel has done a wonderful job with this book. We will be waiting impatiently to see what he does next.