Kitty and the Moonlight Rescue

Paula Harrison's Kitty and the Moonlight Rescue is a gentle superhero story for 7 year olds about a girl who can talk to cats but is scared of the dark.

What happens

Kitty's family has a special secret. Her mum has catlike superpowers. She can see in the dark, climb walls and talk to cats, and every night she slips out over the rooftops to help anyone in trouble.

Kitty wants to be just like her one day. The trouble is, it's awfully dark out there. And full of odd shadows and noises.

Then, on a night when Mum has already gone out, a black cat called Figaro scratches at Kitty's window. There's an emergency at the clock tower. Something up there is howling so loudly that every animal in the neighbourhood is in a panic. And Figaro takes one look at Kitty in her dressing-up cat costume and decides she must be a real superhero.

Will she be brave enough to climb out onto the roof?

It's such a lovely little adventure. Once the moon comes out, Kitty feels her powers tingling, with night vision, super hearing and perfect balance all kicking in. It's very satisfying watching a nervous girl realise she can leap from roof to roof after all!

She picks up a little gang of cats along the way. Figaro is dramatic and always hungry (he stops to admire the haddock in a fish shop window in the middle of the emergency). Pixie is a fluffy white cat who's sure there's a ghost. Katsumi is the calm, sensible one who knows a shortcut.

Her mum's words, "You're braver than you think", run through the whole story. If you've got a reader who's a little bit nervous at bedtime, that might be really comforting. There's one tense moment high up on the clock tower, but it never gets properly scary.

It's a short read, six chapters in all, and it finishes with some fun facts about the real super senses cats have.

What to read next

If the rescuing is their favourite bit, try The Storm Dragon, another one by Paula Harrison. Sophy is a maid at a castle who finds a baby dragon with a hurt wing, and she has to be very brave to keep him hidden from the knight hunting for him.