Kitten Construction Company: Meet the House Kittens by John Patrick Green & Cat Caro

Photos provided by Elisa Gall

Today's contributor is Elisa Gall, is a librarian and educator from the Chicagoland area. She serves as the Youth Collection Development Librarian at Deerfield (Illinois) Public Library, and she is on the blogging team at Reading While White (http://readingwhilewhite.blogspot.com). You can find her on Twitter at @gallbrary.

There’s always a lot of talk amongst teachers and librarians around the comics format and the ALA Youth Media Awards. There is even a task force examining comics in the context of many award committee manuals. Taking the Geisel Award into account, there are elements of scaffolding and visual support that comics can provide for beginning readers; but, not all comics for young people are early readers.

One book that I was excited to check out this year is John Patrick Green’s Kitten Construction Company: Meet the House Kittens (with coloring by Cat Caro). In it, the fictional city of Mewburg is building a mansion for its mayor, but the city planner tasked with picking an architect passes over Miss Marmelade (a “cute little kitten”) even though she has the best plans and loads of credentials. (“I regret that you are just too adorable to be taken seriously.”) Marmelade meets Sampson (an electrical engineer) and Bubbles (a plumber): both kittens. The three secure construction gigs, but realize they are only given busy work, and that the city planner is using Marmelade’s plan for the mansion! Without Marmelade’s expert guidance, the city is doing everything all wrong. When the kittens connect with another cat and a group of strays, they save the day—and are given appreciation (though not the same credit for their skills as for their cuteness). 

This book is FUNNY, with a quick plot that is sure to engage a child at the older end of the preK-2^ndgrade Geisel range. The dialogue shines, and the font is presented in cartoon bubbles in a readable size with ample white space. The colorful, cuddly illustrations work in balance, and clearly show what is being described, helping readers make meaning. There are also some fun quirks and changes of medium, which make the book a sure-fire page turner. The comics paneling is pretty straight-forward, as there are no more than four panels per page. This offers a steady pacing, and this also supports beginning readers as they build up their visual literacy skills.

The book is 70 pages long (each numbered), which fits within the 24-96 page length rule for the Geisel. Still, I would not personally classify this book as a beginning reader. There is rarely word repetition, there are several contractions, and some of the names and words are lengthy (“Professor von Wigglebottom,” “circuit,” “anxious,” “Marmelade,” “catastrophe,” etc.). I highly recommend this book for young readers, but I don’t know that there are enough supports in it for it to be considered a true-blue early reader. For me, it’s more of a transitional work that happens to be in the comics format. However, I’m always up for surprises when the YMAs come around, and an argument could always be made for its nomination by a thoughtful committee member (and let’s not forget this book is technically eligible for all sort of awards, not only the Geisel). What do you think?