cover image Don't Do That Kitty Kilroy!

Don't Do That Kitty Kilroy!

Cressida Cowell. Scholastic, $15.95 (32pp) ISBN 978-0-531-30209-5

""Why don't you go away and let me do what I want?"" screams redheaded Kitty Kilroy after being chastised for the umpteenth time. To Kitty's surprise, her mother acquiesces--leaving Kitty free to wear her pajamas all day, cut the braids off her doll and cavort with her friends until the wee hours. But even a girl with a cast-iron constitution has to call it quits sometime. Exhausted and sick from a diet of ice cream and cereal, Kitty is silent but grateful when her mother reappears and restores order--""Until tomorrow, of course,"" concludes the author slyly. Pushing a situation--especially one that involves misbehavior--to its logical if ultimately silly conclusion is always a surefire laugh-getter with young audiences, and Cowell (Little Bo Peep's Library Book) mines the set-up with brio. Wisely, she never sacrifices her heroine on the altar of decorum; Kitty remains a spunky firebrand to the very end. The impish cartooned drawings and the typography, exaggerated for dialogue, capitalize on the comic chaos. Ages 4-7. (Mar.)