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mrskatiefitz's review
5.0
This review covers the first three books of the Fashion Kitty series.
Though I love Charise Mericle Harper, it took me a long time to get around to reading Fashion Kitty. I love the Just Grace series and her picture book, Cupcake, so it really was just a matter of time, but since I am neither a fashionista nor a cat lady, a book combining those two themes didn't necessarily strike me as a good fit. Finally, though, all three volumes - Fashion Kitty (2005), Fashion Kitty Versus the Fashion Queen(2007), and Fashion Kitty and the Unlikely Hero (2008) - were sitting on my library shelf one day, and I decided it was time. I snatched them all up, took them home, and read them one right after the other.
The Fashion Kitty books are graphic novels, drawn to look girly. The covers sparkle with glitter, and the illustrations are colored with pink, purple, and gray ink. Fashion Kitty herself wears pink and purple, as does her alter ago, Kiki Kittie, and Kiki's sister, Lana.
Kiki Kittie becomes Fashion Kitty for the first time on her birthday. She makes a wish, and subsequently gets smacked in the head with a pile of fashion magazines. From then on, either from the wish, or the blow to the head, or both, whenever a fashion faux pas is committed in her town, Kiki turns into Fashion Kitty and flies off to save the day. (She has no control over when this might happen, but it often occurs at dinner time, much to her mother's dismay.)
Fashion Kitty's powers are as follows:
Brain that can mix and match hundreds of outfits in a second
Ears that hear the distress call of someone in need of fashion help
X-ray eyes that can see through buildings or anything else that's in the way
Heart, mostly good
Tail of comfort. One touch of the tail makes everything seem all right.
Supersonic feet that make Fashion Kitty really bounce (p.36)
Fashion Kitty is really popular and famous, but she has a nemesis or two. In Fashion Kitty Versus the Fashion Queen, she must deal with a new girl in town who has banned all the girls from wearing the color pink. In Fashion Kitty and the Unlikely Hero, the principal of Kiki's own school is on anti-fashion rampage and forces all the students to wear uniforms. Fashion Kitty has to work hard to fight for fashion and earn back her friends' rights to dress how they want.
Kiki Kittie is a vegetarian, and so are all her family members. This means that, while other cats eat mice, they actually have a secret pet named Mousie. They are also unusual in that both girls, Kiki and Lana, are permitted to dress in whatever funky styles they want, and their parents encourage it. Lana is also just a really great four-year-old character. She's not jealous that she's not Fashion Kitty, she just wishes Kiki could stay Fashion Kitty long enough to play with her when she gets home from a mission.
Overall, I have to say, these books are a lot of fun. They are not just watered down versions of stereotypically masculine superhero stories. They celebrate all that is fun about being female, and put a unique and creative twist on the superhero genre. I did notice a lot of similarities between Grace from the Just Grace series and Fashion Kitty - both are strongly empathetic, and both are hugely optimistic, and always try to look toward the positive - but while Grace is bound by the rules of reality, Fashion Kitty gets to play with those boundaries a bit more, pushing them to their limits and saving the world, in her own way, one fashion disaster at a time.
An excellent series for third and fourth grade girls.
Though I love Charise Mericle Harper, it took me a long time to get around to reading Fashion Kitty. I love the Just Grace series and her picture book, Cupcake, so it really was just a matter of time, but since I am neither a fashionista nor a cat lady, a book combining those two themes didn't necessarily strike me as a good fit. Finally, though, all three volumes - Fashion Kitty (2005), Fashion Kitty Versus the Fashion Queen(2007), and Fashion Kitty and the Unlikely Hero (2008) - were sitting on my library shelf one day, and I decided it was time. I snatched them all up, took them home, and read them one right after the other.
The Fashion Kitty books are graphic novels, drawn to look girly. The covers sparkle with glitter, and the illustrations are colored with pink, purple, and gray ink. Fashion Kitty herself wears pink and purple, as does her alter ago, Kiki Kittie, and Kiki's sister, Lana.
Kiki Kittie becomes Fashion Kitty for the first time on her birthday. She makes a wish, and subsequently gets smacked in the head with a pile of fashion magazines. From then on, either from the wish, or the blow to the head, or both, whenever a fashion faux pas is committed in her town, Kiki turns into Fashion Kitty and flies off to save the day. (She has no control over when this might happen, but it often occurs at dinner time, much to her mother's dismay.)
Fashion Kitty's powers are as follows:
Brain that can mix and match hundreds of outfits in a second
Ears that hear the distress call of someone in need of fashion help
X-ray eyes that can see through buildings or anything else that's in the way
Heart, mostly good
Tail of comfort. One touch of the tail makes everything seem all right.
Supersonic feet that make Fashion Kitty really bounce (p.36)
Fashion Kitty is really popular and famous, but she has a nemesis or two. In Fashion Kitty Versus the Fashion Queen, she must deal with a new girl in town who has banned all the girls from wearing the color pink. In Fashion Kitty and the Unlikely Hero, the principal of Kiki's own school is on anti-fashion rampage and forces all the students to wear uniforms. Fashion Kitty has to work hard to fight for fashion and earn back her friends' rights to dress how they want.
Kiki Kittie is a vegetarian, and so are all her family members. This means that, while other cats eat mice, they actually have a secret pet named Mousie. They are also unusual in that both girls, Kiki and Lana, are permitted to dress in whatever funky styles they want, and their parents encourage it. Lana is also just a really great four-year-old character. She's not jealous that she's not Fashion Kitty, she just wishes Kiki could stay Fashion Kitty long enough to play with her when she gets home from a mission.
Overall, I have to say, these books are a lot of fun. They are not just watered down versions of stereotypically masculine superhero stories. They celebrate all that is fun about being female, and put a unique and creative twist on the superhero genre. I did notice a lot of similarities between Grace from the Just Grace series and Fashion Kitty - both are strongly empathetic, and both are hugely optimistic, and always try to look toward the positive - but while Grace is bound by the rules of reality, Fashion Kitty gets to play with those boundaries a bit more, pushing them to their limits and saving the world, in her own way, one fashion disaster at a time.
An excellent series for third and fourth grade girls.
heathermassa's review
2.0
I'm not in love with Fashion Kitty. There is something completely lame-o about the plots of the story. I like Captain Underpants, so it's not the audience or something. It just seems so BORING.
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