Must Love Pets 02 – Kitten Chaos

Saadia Faruqi's Kitten Chaos is the second Must Love Pets story, a warm and noisy animal adventure for 8 year olds about three friends and three very small troublemakers.

What happens

Imaan, London and Olivia run a pet-sitting business called Must Love Pets. It's summer, fifth grade is over, and Imaan has a secret mission. She wants to prove to Mama she's responsible enough for a dog of her own. (Mama has said no forty-four times. Imaan has counted.)

Their next client is Carl, who has to fly off for work at the last minute. He's fostering three eight-week-old kittens, and they have to stay together. Bella, Missy and Clyde. How hard can it be?

Within twenty minutes, Missy is halfway up the living room curtains. Imaan falls off a stepladder trying to reach her. Then all three kittens stroll across the kitchen table, straight through the butter, while Mama is busy outside.

And that's just the kittens. Imaan's grandfather, Dada Jee, has buckets of lemons all over the kitchen floor because he's decided to start selling them, and Mama is NOT happy about it. Her six-year-old brother Amir wants to cuddle the kittens like a sack of potatoes. The grumpy neighbour from next door turns up right in the middle of the sugar spill.

Reading it feels like being dropped into a very busy, very loving house. Imaan tells the story herself, quickly and with lots of jokes, and she's honest about the times she feels sad for no reason. Her dad died when she was little. That's part of her family's past rather than something that happens here, and it's handled gently (Dada Jee's stories about the kittens he grew up with in Pakistan are some of the loveliest bits).

The three girls are a great team, too. London is the business brain with a notebook, Olivia knows how to pick up a cat properly because she watched a video, and Imaan just wants everyone to be happy.

Is your child desperate for a pet of their own? Then they'll be right on Imaan's side from page one. There's no villain and nothing scary, just one disaster tumbling into the next, and a family who clearly adore each other even when they're cross.

What to read next

It works fine on its own, but if you'd like to start at the beginning, Furry Friends Forever is where the business gets going, on the first morning of summer, with Imaan still at attempt forty-two on the dog question.