Dog Man and Cat Kid

Dav Pilkey's Dog Man and Cat Kid is a VERY silly comic for 7 year olds where a tiny kitten has to decide whether he's a goodie or a baddie.

What happens

Li'l Petey is staying with Dog Man, the cop with a dog's head. When Dog Man goes to work, he hires "the world's greatest babysitter", umbrella and British accent included.

It's Petey in a wig, of course (the kitten knew all along). Petey is the city's wicked cat and Li'l Petey is his clone. He'd very much like his "son" to grow up evil. The kitten would rather be like Dog Man.

Meanwhile Hollywood is making a film about Dog Man. He's meant to be guarding the star, but he eats the roast chicken in the big romance scene instead. He's soon fired.

So Petey plots to shut the film down, and takes the kitten along. The kitten gets a mask, a cape, steel claws and a superhero name. Cat Kid! He checks it's all "just for pretend" and Papa says yes (which isn't quite true).

This is the fourth Dog Man book. George and Harold, the boys who supposedly make these comics, start with a quick recap. They've also been reading a grown-up classic about good and evil at school. Underneath all the daftness, the real question is whether you have to turn out like your family.

It's a comic from start to finish, so lots of the jokes are in the pictures. Dog Man doesn't talk (he plays a brilliant game of charades instead). There are huge shouty capitals and Flip-E-Rama pages, where your reader swipes back and forth to make the pictures move. Most children will gobble it up in one sitting.

Ever been stuck at a till while someone types your details in one... very... slow... key at a time? Petey has, and it does NOT go well.

Worth knowing before you hand it over

The toilet humour is turned right up, with a fart cloud on the film set and a giant robot losing its trousers. Petey bosses the kitten about and calls him a baby when he cries. Near the end Cat Kid's robot friend gets kicked into the sky and he sobs his heart out. It's only a few pages, but a soft-hearted reader might want a cuddle. If your reader is happy with cartoon crashes and a villain who's more shouty than scary, they'll be fine.

What to read next

Because this one carries on from the earlier books, it's well worth starting with the first ever Dog Man book. That's where a cop and his police dog get hurt in an explosion and end up as one very waggy hero.