Kitten Construction Company: Meet the House Kittens by John Patrick Green (review)

Marmalade is an adorable orange kitten. She's also an accomplished architect, but when she submits her plan for the new mayor's mansion to the city planner, she gets passed over for a subpar design because, well, kittens are just too cute to be taken seriously in a world run by humans. Not deterred, Marmalade recruits a crew of other kittens—Sampson the electrical engineer, Bubbles the plumber, and Professor von Wigglebottom the carpenter—to build her design on an abandoned construction site. When the mayor's mansion collapses, the House Kittens are ready to show off their superior skills. Marmalade and her pals are small cats in a big human city, with a cat's-eye view of busy cafes, streets, and construction sites rendered in inviting colors, and readers will get plenty of giggles out of the humans' missteps and occasional kitten hijinks in between their more serious construction activities. Despite Marmalade's objections, though, cuteness is most of what this graphic novel has going for it; there's not much substance to grab onto in the characters or plot. The city planner's epiphany that Marmalade's plan was better feels forced, and the message about paying attention to good ideas, even if they come from someplace unexpected, is heavy handed. Still, this story will speak to kids who feel it acutely when adults don't take them seriously, as well as cat lovers and kids with an interest in building things. The simple layouts make it an accessible choice for readers making the switch from picture books to more elaborate graphic and prose fiction, and the text is just complex enough to make this a satisfying independent reading challenge. SS