Catamorphosis! Bad Kitty: Camp Daze by Nick Bruel

WOOF!  BARK!  WOOF!  BARK!

KITTY! STOP THAT!

Ever since Kitty got hit in the head by her food dish in a game between Baby and Puppy, she's been acting like a dog. Her ears flop forward. Her tail curls up. Her tongue laps out of her mouth and she pants excitedly. She growls. She barks at the mailman. She chews up the mail. And she wants to play chase with Puppy constantly.

Poor Puppy is too pooped to play. Kitty begs.

WHINE! WHINE! WHINE!

Kitty! Don't whine! Since when did you start whining? Play with Baby!"

Puppy collapses in his bed, exhausted.

Nobody but Baby has figured it out.

"KIDDY DOG!" she says.

"No, Baby. Kitty is a cat."

"KIDDY NO CAD! KIDDY DOG! KIDDY DOG!!"

The head of household decides that what Poor Puppy needs is a few restful days at a dandy camp for dogs, run by (who else) Uncle Murray. Kitty howls in dismay, but Puppy can't wait to escape his new playmate. But Kitty Dog is clever enough to stow away in Puppy's duffel bag. And though she fails the sniff test, her WOOF passes muster with the other canine campers. Uncle Murray launches into a pep talk aimed at raising morale.

You guys are really on edge. That's why you're out here, in nature with no stress, and especially no--

CATS!

Kitty Dog fakes it pretty well, until she fails the Fido fetch tryouts, sustaining repeated tossed bones to the head which set off a series of multiple personality changes.

BONK! WOOF! BONK! MEOW? BONK! WOOF? BONK! MEOW?

Dog camp is a HOWL with Kitty carrying off her counterfeit canine identity well until she and Uncle Murray find themselves eyeball to eyeball in a standoff with a bear, at which time Kitty's inner cougar comes through--thanks to the mystical materialization of Bastet, Egyptian patron goddess of cats.

It's a case of I AM CAT! HEAR ME ROAR!

ME-OW!

Bad Kitty comes through once more, in Nick Bruel's latest in his best-selling beginner chapter book series, Bad Kitty Camp Daze (Roaring Brook Press, 2018). Author Nick Bruel Cartoonist Nick handles the transmogrifications of Kitty from cat to dog and back again comically and capably, with Bad Kitty at last happily exchanging her camp tent for her comfy cat bed, still trying to catch her daily 22-hour catnap. School Library Journal finds this latest Bad Kitty book doggone good, saying "A seamless melding of text and illustrations. A must-have for early chapter book readers."