Review by Booklist Review
When Cleo's cherished cat goes missing, she wanders her Manhattan apartment building in the hopes of locating her wayward pet. The simple search-and-rescue mission turns into the adventure of a lifetime when she pushes into a neighbor's unlocked door and finds herself surrounded by talking cats. It's revealed that Cleo has accidentally infiltrated the Manhattan headquarters of PURR (Peace Urgently Requires Reasonableness), a top-secret, feline-focused spy agency. It's perfect timing, too, as their evil counterpart, KLAW (Cats Loving Awful Warfare--"They put the 'K' in just to be annoying"), is up to no good, and PURR needs a new face to infiltrate KLAW's nefarious ranks and save the world from their greedy machinations. The terrifically surreal story is an outlandish delight, chock-full of high jinks and hilarious history. The quick pace and unconventional illustrations will capture readers' attention easily, though it may have them looking at any cat companion in a different light. A creative caper that will appeal to any fan of felines who's looking for suspense and silliness.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
While looking for her cat Muffin, self-possessed 12-year-old Cleopatra Stein meets Jane Oakhurst--an ostensibly childless cat lady who turns out to be the leader of PURR (Peace Urgently Requires Reasonableness), a secret global society of talking cats who battle the evil KLAW (Cats Loving Awful Warfare). ("They put the K in just to be annoying," complains one furry PURR member.) Cleo and Muffin enlist in a mission to stop KLAW from misusing an invention "that could solve the energy problems of the whole earth for the next hundred years"--KLAW intends to use it to send all dogs into space, where they will hold them for ransom. Since every world leader owns a dog (they're considered "more patriotic" than cats) the stakes are sky-high. Eclectic characters, spot art in the creator's signature smudgy style, plentiful cleverly imagined or screwball tangents and asides, and the revelation that cats or cat-human hybrids are behind every technological leap, save the wheel, make for an archly comical, occasionally woolly fantasy novel by Raschka (My Book and Me). Ages 8--up. (Sept.)
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A 12-year-old New Yorker joins a secret society of intelligent, peace-loving cats working to save the world from felines with evil intentions. When Cleopatra Stein and her cat, Muffin, discover that Jane Oakhurst, an old lady in their apartment building, has five talking cats, Jane explains that they're part of the organization PURR: Peace Urgently Requires Reasonableness. Cats are responsible for most of the world's technological advancements, but while PURR members are dedicated to stability, there's another cat society with opposite goals: KLAW, or Cats Loving Awful Warfare ("They put the 'K' in just to be annoying"). When KLAW members get their paws on the plans for the aether beam, PURR's new invention that's intended to be a source of "pure energy," they decide to twist its purpose for their own gain. Their goal: to blast all the dogs on Earth into outer space. It's up to Cleo to go undercover and stop them in their tracks. In this entertaining although overstuffed tale featuring frequent, appealing black-and-white watercolor-style spot illustrations, Cleo, Jane, and their band of lovable, amusing cats are easy to root for as they go up against nasty baddies of both the human and feline varieties. The story is most fun when it leans into the cats' zany antics, but it stumbles when it comes to the extraneous side plots. The main humans are cued white. A somewhat bloated yet endearing and diverting story for cat lovers. (character portraits)(Fiction. 8-12) Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
