Too Cute to Succeed? Kitten Construction Company: Meet the House Kittens by John Patrick Green

THE CITY OF MEWBURG IS PREPARING A FOR A BIG PROJECT...

THE CONSTRUCTION OF A NEW MAYOR'S MANSION! THE CITY PLANNER HAS TO PICK AN ARCHITECT!

The plans before him are terrific. Laying the blueprints he's been perusing with pleasure down on his desk, he asks the candidate's name.

"MARMALADE," SHE MEWS.

She's adorable, but the City Planner insists that a cute kitten cannot be capable.

Marmalade finds herself ejected and out on the sidewalk, fuming that being a cute cat is a handicap in the construction business. Angry and hurt, she decides she needs a drink to calm her down.

ONE SAUCER OF MILK....

AND KEEP 'EM COMING!"

But when the Joe chomping a sandwich at the counter coos that she's adorable, Marmalade has had it. She's earned her credentials the hard way in college, but how can she overcome the cuteness handicap, the idea that she's too cute to cut it in the construction trade?

But on her way out of the diner, Marmalade meets up with another cat fighting discrimination against cute kittens--Sampson, the dishwasher at the diner, an electrical engineer who is too cute to get a gig in the construction trade. They come up with a plan: if they can't get hired because of the bias in the workplace against being adorable, they'll just start their own business. On their way down the street they meet Bubbles, the blue-eyed white kitten whose dream is to plenty of pipes to plumb, and despite the putdown of being offered piddling jobs like untangling Christmas lights, the three discover that they are employees on the site of the new mayor's mansion. The three kittens confiscate the blueprints and realize that the mayor's mansion is doomed to self destruct catastrophically. Can the Kitten Construction Company save the day?

Of course they can! Overcoming the distractions of balls of yarn and laser light toys, the three professionals succeed despite an overkill of cuteness to prevent the coming civic cat-astrophe in author-illustrator John Patrick Green's Kitten Construction Company: Meet the House Kittens (Kitten Construction Company, 1) (First Second Books). You can't judge a book by its cover or a kitten by its cuteness! With more than a touch of humor that satirizes the workplace, this graphic novel will appeal to cat lovers, kids of all ages, and grownups as well. Says School Library Journal, "Don’t be fooled by the smiling kittens in construction hats adorning the cover―this lighthearted graphic novel doles out an important message about the dangers of judging by appearances."