Elementary readers will be forever Bad Kitty, #FurEverBadKitty

For us, Bad Kitty is the best kind of retiring cop buddy-movie. They always manage to pull us back in. Our 11-year-old went through a huge Bad Kitty phase when he was in third grade. He would howl with laughter when we’d leave him alone so that he could dig in with Uncle Murray, kitty, and the other animals that make up Nick Brule’s world. That was a couple of years ago. His brother was casually interested in Bad Kitty, and then not at all. However, now, just like the venerable Sergeant Murtaugh who’s about to retire, our nine-year-old has rediscovered a certain skittish black kitty.

That is exactly why you keep those collections of books older children have amassed. The younger siblings might not want to read, engage, or otherwise do anything that the older one has done, regardless of how awesome it is. They’ve got to blaze their own trail, even if sometimes that thing has to be the subject of school bus prater.

I’m pretty sure that’s what happened. A friend at school was talking about Bad Kitty and then our son realized that he had all of the books at home. “Yeah, I read Bad Kitty too”, he probably chimed in, all the while hoping that his dad was smart enough to save the Bad Kitty collection that his brother had.

If you go to any elementary school library you’ll see Bad Kitty books. They’ll be dog-eared, have their pages turned at the spine or any manner that says that they’ve been loved. Loved, in the context of an elementary school library is they’re read, often checked out, shared between kids, and treated the way that an eight-year-old might treat something.

From the perspective of us and our nine-year-old, this is a great thing. He’s a reluctant reader who’s perfectly capable of reading, but he doesn’t want to read. As a result of this, and his lack of practice, his comprehension is below where it needs to be for what’s required of him in school. As some parents will attest to, if you want a child to do something, then it could be the last thing of their long list of things that they want to do. The fact that he wants to read Bad Kitty and will eagerly sit down in his bed while is the stuff of Uncle Murray magic.

We’re part of the #FurEverBadKitty read-along challenge. The great thing about this is that thousands of elementary school kids are participating in this without even realizing it. I just asked our youngest son what he likes reading about Bad Kitty and he said “the action”. Sensing that he was just trying to placate me with a quick answer I requested a conversation where he could tell me about his favorite character. As suspected, Uncle Murray was his first, which was quickly followed up by the titular Bad Kitty. If you have an elementary-aged reader in your future and aren’t familiar with Bad Kitty by Nick Bruel this is a series that hooks most kids. It’s loaded with funny illustrations and has lots of sight words too. Younger readers might need help with some pages, but it’s the kind of book that they’ll want to spend time with alone, laughing, reading, and learning.

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