Dog Man: A Tale of Two Kitties

Dog Man: A Tale of Two Kitties by Dav Pilkey is a laugh-on-every-page comic for 7 year olds about a villain who accidentally makes himself a kitten.

What happens

Petey is the wicked cat of the series. He floats out of Cat Jail on a bunch of birthday balloons he tricked off another prisoner (which is very Petey). Back at his lab he wants a helper who thinks exactly like him.

So he orders a cloning machine online and plucks out one of his own whiskers. What comes out is a tiny kitten who calls him Papa and asks "Why?" about absolutely everything.

Petey wanted an evil sidekick. What he's got is Li'l Petey, who makes him a crayon book and strains his tea through the fly swatter. Petey does not cope well!

Meanwhile Dog Man (a police officer with a dog's head, all explained in a quick recap at the start) is meant to be guarding a dead fish. He loses it. The fish has just been rebuilt with robot parts, so that won't end quietly. Before long the city is full of buildings that have come to life, with big muscly arms and a LOT of teeth.

This isn't the first Dog Man book, but the recap means your reader can happily start here.

It's a comic from start to finish, so half the jokes are in the pictures. There are huge shouty capitals, sound effects all over the place and Flip-E-Rama pages, where you swipe back and forth between two pictures to make them move (the book explains how to do it on a screen). Most children will read it in one sitting and then go straight back for the funny bits.

The real heart of it is the two kitties. Li'l Petey is sweet all the way through, and grumpy Petey slowly finds he cares more than he lets on. Who knew a supervillain could be won over by a crayon drawing?

Worth knowing before you hand it over

Early on, Petey leaves the kitten in a box marked Free Kitty and runs off. Li'l Petey spends the evening alone, singing a sad little song to his crate, which might tug at a soft-hearted reader. Dog Man soon takes him under his wing. The big battles are cartoon crashes between walking buildings, and there's plenty of toilet and bottom humour too.

What to read next

Inside the story the comics are drawn by George and Harold, who have books of their own. If your reader enjoys that joke, try Captain Underpants and the Tyrannical Retaliation of the Turbo Toilet 2000. It's a later book in that series, with George and Harold sleeping through test day and a giant toilet out for revenge.