*Review* Katie the Catsitter: Secrets and Sidekicks by Colleen AF Venable

 

Genre: Graphic Novel

Published: May 2, 2023

Pages: 224

Calling all graphic novel fans! Get ready for sidekick training (and  friendship drama!) with Katie the Catsitter in book 3 of the purr-fectly irresistible, bestselling middle-grade graphic novel series about growing up, friendship, heroes, and cats (lots of cats)!

“Readers will revel in the heroic antics.” --The New York Times

What’s better than BFFs? Super sidekick BFFs! Katie can’t wait to have Beth join her for sidekick training! Until . . . it turns out Beth might be a way better sidekick than Katie! And now Beth and Marie are hanging out all the time, Jess is acting super weird, and Katie still needs to tell her mom about being a sidekick. Oh yeah, and giant robots are attacking the city. So. That’s not great.

Can Katie and 217 super-unusual cats work together to save the city (and seventh grade)? Or is Katie about to be in super trouble? Bonus: includes instructions to make your own friendship bracelet!

I received a copy of this book through Netgalley. This is my honest review. 

This was a book that my daughter picked during a round of request roulette, and I think she picked it in part because the main character and I share a name, since she later told me she was picking books she thought I'd like. And who wouldn't want to read a book with a main character that shares the same name as them, right? In this case, because this is a graphic novel, I wasn't exactly thrilled about it. 

This book is the third in a series, but I didn't feel like I was completely in the dark about what was going on. While it did seem like there was a villain who returned from a previous book, I didn't really feel like I needed to know why Katie was so suspicious of him exactly to accept the suspicion as valid. 

It was also interesting to me the way the media jumped to such drastic conclusions about who was to blame for things without considering other possibilities, although I will acknowledge that they were likely mirroring our reporters, with some exaggeration. The way viewers just believed whatever the reporters were telling them was definitely some social commentary, likely to make the point that we shouldn't just believe everything we're told. 

I felt like there was a fair amount of exposition in this graphic novel, so I didn't dislike it as much as I typically dislike graphic novels. Not like there were whole paragraphs of narration or anything, but there was enough dialogue and inner monologue to largely tell the story in words, for me at least. 

Overall I give Secrets and Sidekicks 3.895 out of 5 stars. - Katie 

Amazon

Colleen AF (Ann Felicity) Venable is the author of many books for kids and was longlisted for a National Book Award for her YA graphic novel debut, Kiss Number 8. Colleen splits her time between Brooklyn, New York, and an old house in Western Massachusetts that she’s rebuilding with friends. When she’s not writing books, she can be found working at animal rescues, failing at imitating birdcalls, and getting very excited when she spots a frog.

Stephanie Yue is the illustrator of several picture books and chapter books in addition to Katie the Catsitter, and was the colorist for Smile by Raina Telgemeier. Steph travels the world by motorbike and spent the past year and a half converting a Sprinter van into a full-time mobile studio. She’s currently drawing the next Katie the Catsitter from all over North America, and eating and climbing all the things.