Katie the Catsitter: The Purrfect Plan

Author: Colleen AF Venable
Illustrator: Stephanie Yue

© Date: 2023
Publisher: Random House
Pages: 211
Chapters: Yes
Illustrations: Yes, graphic novel
Publisher Recommended Age: 8-12
Bonus Activities at End of Book: Yes, quiz for which cat are you, author/illustrator information details

Summary from Book: Wanted: Top Secret Plan!

Katie is rocking seventh grade and being a superhero sidekick. So when a new threat puts the whole city-including Katie’s own home-in danger, she’s ready to spring into action! She’ll just need one super-secret plan, a little help from her friends (okay, a lot of help!), an invitation to the city’s fanciest party, 217 highly trained cats, and…maybe an elephant. Easy-peasy! (Right?!) Can Katie pull of the plan of the century? (And uh-oh…is someone onto her secret identity?!)

Page Pig Thoughts: Another fun Katie the Catsitter with a little bit of drama and superhero silliness. Highlighting the difficulty of maintaining a change that has already been made is definitely a thought provoking thing. Some people are change makers, but apparently some people maintaining a status quo of sorts is not the worst thing. Page Pup maintains a thumbs up rating for this one.

Family Unit:

• Katie lives with her mom.
• Katie’s best friend Beth lives with her mother, but her father just left home.
• Mr. B and Benito are brothers.
  

Conflict/Social Issues:

1. SlimBuilds is taking over the real estate between apartment buildings. The properties take up sunlight, electricity, and whatever else just so happens to fall to the wayside.
2. Money hungry people are the focus of the narrative, particularly because of SlimBuilds.
3. Some family drama is present, like Madeline’s parents liking Cheesy Justice but not Mousetress. Beth’s dad leaving home and Beth’s mom not wanting to talk about it for a good chunk of the book, but them all going to family therapy at the end.

Positive Items:

1. Creating change can be time consuming and tricky, but Madeline discovers that maintaining the change can be even trickier. Madeline continues to work on making the city/world a better place for animals and people.
2. The characters in the story have good personal growth and are trying to be better and do better.
3. Katie is kind to the people that she comes across, she even thinks of a way to help Cold Hands so that he can go back to being a sidekick.

Items of Interest:

1. Madeline is not bothered that the Mousetress has a bad reputation because she knows that she is doing good. But Madeline is also not interested in continuing to be Cheesy Justice with all of the bright colors and underwear on the outside, even if Cheesy Justice has a number one superhero ranking.
2. Beth’s dad is upset that her mom had not told him about being Stainless Steel, so he has not been at home. Beth feels like she may have done something wrong that made him leave home. The end of the story has the three of them going to family counseling, which Beth says helped.
3. As the Mousetress, Madeline had gotten NYC to give up the carriage horse program because the horses were being treated poorly. The mayor has brought back one carriage horse company for an exclusive contract. Yes, they were the most negligent in animal care. Mousetress broadcasts that the horses are in stalls too tiny to turn around. The company has a PR event showing how the horses like their tiny home like stalls that give them an in the womb experience. Madeline is highly disappointed that a positive change did not last.
4. SlimBuilds is the new company in town building high tech, super narrow apartments that fit between the existing apartment buildings. They make it so that no natural light gets into existing apartments on certain sides of the buildings. The high tech part of SlimBuilds is to mimic daylight and make the tiny places appealing to people with lots of money.
5. Madeline does not want to read all of the fan mail that keeps rolling in. Katie takes a letter and sticks it in her jacket pocket. One of the other Wheel-las, Josie, happens to find it. Katie gets permission to give up Madeline’s secret identity. Josie goes on to help with the big plan at the end of the story.
6. One of the fan mail letters happens to be from Madeline’s mom. Katie finds it in the heap at the storage unit filled with fan mail. Madeline’s mom naturally doesn’t know that Madeline is Cheesy Justice. The kind words that were sent to Cheesy Justice are tricky to handle since Madeline’s mom is not a fan of the whole Mousetress thing. Madeline would like her parents to be proud of her as The Mousetress.
7. Marie has never found great success with her skateboarding skills. The Wheel-las see a woman doing incredible rollerblading skills at the skate park, and Marie instantly falls in love. She is reluctant to actually use her skate though, which she later admits is a result of fear of finding out that she is not good at skating. When she finally puts on her skates, she turns out to be a jaw-dropping natural.
8. Benito has been working on personal change and growth now that he is no longer Owl Guy/Eastern Screech. Benito and Mr. B have been doing family therapy to improve their relationship.
9. Sidekicks are not allowed into the mayor’s gala. Madeline and Katie’s mom decide that Katie can be a partner with Madeline. Now Madeline is Cheesy and Katie is Justice. Katie’s superhero sills do not disappoint at the mayor’s mansion.
10. Stainless Steel does not help in the big plan at the end because she is going to family therapy with Beth and her husband.
11. The cats are still heroes with all of their skills. But Moritz having an innate desire to knock things down and Jolie’s cunning thermostat trick mean that they are still cats at heart. What is the thermostat trick? The purrfect plan involves the thermostat at the mayor’s mansion needing to be turned up. Jolie programs the thermostat to be 95 degrees instead of 68 degrees. “Why don’t people just turn down the thermostat?” Josie asks. Katie’s mom says, “She’s made it so it’ll still read sixty-eight degrees, and every time they press the down button, it goes up a degree.” Which, in my opinion, seems like something that a cat would do, if they could, I don’t really want to find out.
12. SlimBuilds is shut down in the end because people think the stock is worth nothing and sell it off.

Other Books in Series (At Time of Posting):

• Katie the Catsitter (Book 1) [review]
• Katie the Catsitter: Best Friends for Never (Book 2) [review]
• Katie the Catsitter: Secrets and Sidekicks (Book 3) [review]
• Katie the Catsitter: The Purrfect Plan (Book 4)

      

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