No Fuzzball!

May 1, 2020
This feline queen knows how to care for her subjects--as long as they worship her by shouting her name. NoFuzzball lives in total harmony with the subjects in her queendom. They see to her every need and shower her with presents. When she sees a new gift, a perfect queen-sized bed (which readers might recognize as an open suitcase), she plunks herself in it until they chant her name: "NoFuzzball!" But then they leave?! The nerve! Well, that gives the queen a chance for some alone time. When she wakes, they're still not home! She wallows in sadness for a moment before she decides to be a gracious ruler. She makes them new beds, thoughtfully destroying the furniture for extra fluff. She brings them gifts of lovely dead mousies. She redecorates the whole of the queendom. When they return, her subjects greet her at the door shouting "Fuzzball!" Have they forgotten her name? No. Once they see the work she's done...they remember, appropriately acclaiming her "NoFuzzball!" The fluffy black kitty gives preschool readers an early lesson in the unreliable narrator as she describes her relationship with her humans. In Kung's illustrations, she's an expressive, endearing little chunk of well-meaning evil. Her interracial human family is just as expressive, and the bright spot and full-bleed illustrations are entertaining from the first endpaper to the last. Hope for more soon from debut author/illustrator Kung. (Picture book. 3-9)

COPYRIGHT(2020) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.