A Look Into My Top 3 Favorite Bad Kitty Books - Cora Lewis-Patterson

Now, I know what you must be thinking. Why am I writing about books that we read when we were still elementary school students? Bad Kitty may seem like any other “little kid” book, but it holds a special place in my heart. Whenever I went to pick up a book off of the bookshelf for quiet reading time, I would always gravitate towards the section that had Bad Kitty. Although short, the books were always incredibly comedic and entertaining, and I always had an enjoyable reading session when I read them. For this reason and many more, Bad Kitty remained my favorite series for many, many years. To this day, I still enjoy picking up one of the books from time to time and letting myself relax with the comforting familiarity that it holds. In this post, I am going to delve into the nostalgia that Bad Kitty holds for me and discuss which of the books are my favorite and why.

#3. Happy Birthday, Bad Kitty

Happy Birthday, Bad Kitty is about Bad Kitty’s birthday celebration, as stated in the title. Kitty’s wondrous day starts off with an alphabetical breakfast, which includes a variety of foods such as aardvark bagels, clam doughnuts, and eel fritters. Soon after, Bad Kitty and her owners start to set up her party decorations, but as usual, she has been up to some serious mischief. She popped her birthday balloons and destroyed the decorations. Kitty definitely did not seem excited about this party. The only thing Bad Kitty has her mindset on is, you guessed it, birthday presents! Every guest, including Strange Kitty, Pretty Kitty, and the dog, arrives with a gift for Bad Kitty, much to her delight. She racks up a nice pile of presents and is quite pleased with her gifts. The party starts off lighthearted, with Bad Kitty's owners showing everyone her baby photos while they eat cake. Throughout the party, however, Kitty notices her pile of gifts seeming to… shrink. She starts to investigate and discovers that someone has been stealing all of her presents! Naturally, Kitty thinks that one of her guests is the culprit, and the mood of the party takes a negative turn as Kitty starts to antagonize her guests one by one, insisting that one of them has stolen her presents. Who is the culprit, and will Kitty ever get her presents back? Being one of the first books in the series, Happy Birthday, Bad Kitty does not focus on a moral or teaching opportunity, instead directing itself towards very young viewers who just want a fun read. Although decently short, it still remains an entertaining book with suspense and keeps the readers' curiosity afloat. Happy Birthday, Bad Kitty earns its spot in my top 3 books with its charm and intensity between characters, leaving the reader impatient to start reading the next book in the series.

#2. Bad Kitty vs. Uncle Murray: The Uproar at the Front Door

Bad Kitty vs. Uncle Murray: The Uproar at the Front Door is a wonderful tale of a war between a cat and her cat sitter. In this book, Bad Kitty’s owners have gone away and have hired Uncle Murray to cat sit Bad Kitty. Uncle Murray was previously only a character relevant in the “Uncle Murray’s Fun Facts” sections of the Bad Kitty books, where he teaches the readers fun facts all about cats, but in Bad Kitty vs. Uncle Murray: The Uproar at the Front Door, he is given life as a main character in the book. I had originally expected when reading the book that Uncle Murray was going to be amazing at taking care of Bad Kitty since he knew so many cat facts, but it turned out that Uncle Murray was actually terrible with cats! This had shocked me quite a lot when reading, and I honestly felt a little bit betrayed by Uncle Murray. Nonetheless, the rest of the book I enjoyed quite a lot. Seeing Bad Kitty pull so many shenanigans that it drove Uncle Murray to his breaking point multiple times was quite entertaining, and it was fun to try and figure out where Bad Kitty was hiding from Uncle Murray. Even though I did not enjoy finding out about Uncle Murray’s lack of knowledge on cats when first starting the book, throughout the book he actually learns a lot about cats and starts to give helpful facts to the reader. This book also builds up to the next book in the series, Bad Kitty Meets The Baby, which a majority of the books do not build-up to each other, so this was a change I enjoyed. All of these reasons contribute to making Bad Kitty vs. Uncle Murray: The Uproar at the Front Door into my top three favorite Bad Kitty books.

#1. Bad Kitty For President

           To put it simply, Bad Kitty For President is what I would consider a masterpiece. In the book, Bad Kitty and all of the other cats who are a part of the Neighborhood Cat Correlation meet up at Bad Kitty’s house to hold an election to vote for their new president. The competition is split up between the cats who live on the right side of the street and the ones who live on the left side of the street (some of which include Chatty Kitty, the Twin Kitties, and Stinky Kitty). Bad Kitty is of course the one who set up the event, wanting to change the rules of the correlation to have great power over her fellow cat comrades and stop the other kitties from eating her garbage. She does her best to not throw any of her notorious hissy fits throughout the campaign and kisses a multitude of babies to show her dedication to becoming the president. Bad Kitty ends up being chosen as the representative for the right side of the street and goes up against Big Kitty as the representative for the left side. The election is intense, and between the two nominees, one cannot know who is going to win. When the winner is finally revealed in the last chapter, decided by Old Kitty, the former president, the winner ends up being… Well, I don’t want to spoil it for you ;). But, it is truly a fitting ending for the wonderful book. Bad Kitty For President teaches young children about the election process while still sticking to its comedic nature at heart. There is a five-page section titled “Edna’s Lovely Little Glossary of Terms” which gives definition to many of the important words to know when discussing elections such as “president” and “nominee.” This book also starts introducing children to longer chapter-style books, being 144 pages with 7 chapters. It is truly a great introduction to many different concepts and gives the reader hilarious content while doing so. When I first read this book, I was always incredibly curious about all of the complications being experienced in the book over the election, and I was able to learn about the process in a light-hearted manner. If you are not really into politics, or just don’t know much about the election process at all, I would still recommend this book to you at this age. I still keep the level of interest I first had when reading it when I was in third grade, so I genuinely believe it can still be beneficial now. Bad Kitty For President is my top Bad Kitty book for so many reasons, and I hope that if you have read this book before, it helped you learn a lot as well.