How to Capture an Invisible Cat, fast paced, funny creative YA for all

There an known unknowns and unknown knowns, as the saying goes. Paul Tobin, the author of How to Capture an Invisible Cat is a writer whose work I followed for years, yet I never knew his name. He’s written comic books for Adventure Time, Prometheus: Fire and Stone, Predators, Bionic Woman, Plants vs. Zombies and lots of other title that I buy or read for fun. He’s also the author of the most enjoyable children’s book that we’ve read in the past six months out too.

To be fair, I love cats. When the book arrived I jokingly said to my wife that this was ‘the purrfect book for me’. Even in real life my wife and I speak in horribly bad puns. She rolled her eyes and seemingly dispatched me to go read a children’s book about invisible cats and the child geniuses that create them.

A couple pages into the book readers will quickly become hooked too. How to Capture an Invisible Cat is the story of a friendship between Nate and Delphine. Nate is a genius, he’s a bit socially awkward and a little shy to boot. Delphine is a typical middle school girl, social, has a part time job walking dogs and an active family life. Their two paths come together when they meet at the dog park when he’s there with Bosper, his dog, who can talk (and anticipate things based on probability). Dephine meets the talking dog who showed off his talent in a nonchalant manner and she learns that this is just the tip of the oddities and adventures that sometimes surround Nate.

Sometimes, because Nate is so smart that life gets boring never being wrong, so every Friday the 13^th he does three not so smart things.  On this particular day he taught a caterpillar math, mailed a love letter and made his cat Proton the size of a building-after making him invisible.

How to Capture an Invisible Cat is a fun book. It balances its surreal humor and the real life complexities of a middle school boy/girl relationship-who might be more than friends, in a way that kids can relate to and enjoy reading about. Young readers will come for the adventures; learn about the Red Death Tea Society, flying cars and science fiction gadgets, but stay for the fun and friendship.

Each chapter is around 20 pages and the vocabulary is on par for middle school students.  Some older elementary readers will be curious about the book, but its longer chapters will mean that only those with longer attention spans will stay hooked.

What I liked about the book was that it had a great balance between the characters and the action. It is very fast paced, but when Nate and Delphine have their one on one dialog pages it slows down, gives them a chance to grow and become friends, before having them run off into a helicopter or chase a leash to a talking dog.  It’s ironic that a book filled with so much absurdity, science fiction and action is so grounded and real in the friendships between a tween girl and boy.

It must be tough to be a child genius. Most likely Nate will not schedule three things to go wrong on the next Friday the 13^th, but I’m hopeful that Tobin finds a way to bring these witty and snappy characters back for another story.

Hey, we’re part of a blog book tour for this book. Blogs on the tour weren’t selected to be part of it because they liked the book.  We just like children’s books.  Dig into the other groovy blogs on the tour like Nerdy Book Club, Jenuine Cupcakes, This Kid Reviews Books, Fiction Fascination, Gobblefunked, Mum to Five and Playing by the Book.