Crafty Cat and the Crafty Camp Crisis

Reviewed by: Sheila Dube - Springvale Public Library, Springvale, Southern Maine Library District

Review Date: April 10, 2018

Review

In this second installment of the series, Birdie, an elementary student who is a lover of crafts, is in her Crafty Cat day-dream packing her box for a day at Monster Craft Camp. As she walks out her front door she becomes Birdie and her friend Evan meets her, after using her bathroom, to walk to school. It is Saturday, which is only stated in the summary on the back book cover, and the school bully Anya is at the camp to repeatedly squash Birdie/Crafty Cat's excitement of each craft activity. Birdie uses her Crafty Cat persona to work out her emotions and spin disappointments in a positive light. A commentary narrator's voice appears in colored text boxes as transitions for Birdie's decisions and explanation steps in some of the crafts. Although the art is in a stagnate cartoon line drawing form with round heads and bubble eyes in pale flat colors, the dialog, action marks and narrator comments gives an overall sense of frantic to the story line. Seven Monster crafts that are done during the camp are explained in detail in the back. A majority of those suggest copying the template to a larger picture, for example 200% which might stop some crafty cat readers from trying to make their own versions. Note to Publisher: on page 88 the word filed should be filled.

Overall Book Score: fair