Bad Kitty

Delightful

I encourage reading and if my kids refuse to read except for Bad Kitty then we both win. So I am glad I purchased this book. It's a great Christmas gift for kids!

I teach Special Education at the elementary level and have used this book over the last month to help my students gain a love for reading, the alphabet, and story-telling. Bruel does an excellent job of utilizing a common storyline that adds new meaning to "that darn cat." My students do not realize they are learning the order of the alphabet, let alone good reading strategies. They love the book and ask me to read it every day. Now that is POWER! Good job Mr. Bruel.

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)...

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.

Do you want to laugh out loud? I can imagine sneaking in and reading this book to myself just to do so...except I would have to do it in an empty home or I would frighten people with my stomache aching laughter. I love the character and the storyline - in addition the sophistication of the vocabulary is refreshing when considering other "learning your alphabet" books. I totally recommend Nick Bruel for yourself and your children and friends. You will be equally amazed and pleased by the original artwork as well.

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.