Club-Read: The Karen Tax: Baby-Sitters Little Sister #04: Karen's Kittycat Club

Well we've covered a few BSC books, so it's time to pay the tax once more. It's time for the next Little Sister book. Fitting we're talking about cats here since we started this month with a book about a missing cat. Karen and her friends form a club over their love of cats. Hey, a club I can get behind. What could paws-ibly go wrong? Let's see with Karen's Kittycat Club. Oh thank god she didn't spell club with a K.

Three covers and a whole lotta cats. First cover is fine, but doesn't really do much. Cats look a little out of it, but otherwise it's a cover with cute cats, does what it needs to do. Reprint cover is a bit better as we also seem to build that there's a conflict going on. But I honestly like the graphic novel cover more, and it's entirely on the angry cat faces. Just full-on cat stink eye that makes the scenario more fun to get into. Look, I'm doing a cover story on a book called Karen's Kittycat Club. The fact I got anything out of these to talk about is sort of a miracle in itself.

Karen's teacher has been reading them Jacob Two-Two, so Karen notes that maybe she should be Karen Two-Two. She has two homes to live in, two plush animals, two bikes, even two cats. A whole lot of twos to talk about. She's also healed her broken wrist, so that subplot is long since gone. Karen and Andrew head to Watson's to which Karen notes Boo-Boo their cat, eating on the counter. At Seth's house, AKA the little house, Seth has a cat named Rocky. Speaking of cats, because this book is already making sure you know what it's about, Karen's friend Hannie shows up, saying her family just got a kitten that they've named Pat. She also has a poodle named Noodle and a turtle named Myrtle. So that's clever I guess. After looking at Pat, Karen gets an idea. A great idea? Nah, but still an idea nonetheless. Since she has a cat, and Hannie has a cat, and their friend Amanda Delaney has a cat, then why not start their own club? The Kittycat Club. There's just one problem. Amanda and Hannie don't like each other.

Since Karen is now all club-pilled, she asks Kristy about how the Baby-sitters Club started. Oh great. The preamble's finding its way into these books. Actually, she just mentions putting up flyers and assigning roles like president and whatnot. Karen decides to send invites to Hannie and Amanda, hoping that should be what makes everything run smoothly. It does not run smoothly as Hannie and Amanda see one another, get mad at each other's cats, and are about to leave, when Karen brings up what her goal for the club is. When someone has to leave, they'll offer to take care of their cats for a fee. Say what you will about Karen. Agent of Chaos, but also financially focused. That night Kristy tells Karen not to set her expectations too high as not all clubs succeed, but Karen is so focused that she doesn't take that into consideration.

The girls decide they'll hold their meetings when she's at Watson's and charge three dollars per pet sitting that they can divide between the three. They then vote for who should take what roles. Amanda wins president, while Karen is vice-president, and not happy about not being in charge of the role she took. Better than Hannie as secretary I guess? So Karen still has control of meetings despite Amanda being president. Karen and Andrew return home to Seth's with wide-eyed ambition that the job will be a hit, to which her mother also tells her to sets those expectations way low. And that's founded as when she talks with Hannie, she learns there's been no calls yet. However, when Karen mentions the club, her friend Nancy Dawes wants in, despite not having a cat. Karen says she can't so now she has an angry friend to compound with a failing club. 

A week goes by with no calls. Nancy shows up at Karen's, begging to join the club, but Karen won't budge on it. The two fight over it, calling each other stupid and breaking up their friendship. So overall, it's going very well. But things turn around as a woman named Mrs. Werner does need someone to watch her cat named Kibble, which yeah that's a decent cat name. So Karen goes to interview for the job, but Mrs. Werner is a bit concerned about all this given Karen's so young and all, so that's a bust. At the next meeting, the girls all fight, the cats fight, it's all a big mess. After everyone leaves, Kristy talks with Karen about how she's sort of taken the wrong idea about what clubs are. They don't have to be jobs like the BSC, they can just be things for people who enjoy a similar thing. She of course didn't tell Karen all of this since there wouldn't be much of a book-err, I mean because Karen needed to learn this on her own, of course. 

Karen calls Hannie and Amanda and tells the two that she's shutting the club down and decides to appoint them as un-presidents. However, not too long after Karen has another club idea. She invites Hannie, Amanda and Nancy to her new club, the Fun Club, where they just have fun and don't have to worry about monetary gain. A bunch of other kids join in, so it's actually a larger collection of people than even the BSC, so at least Karen can lord that over Kristy if she wanted. 

Honestly, this book is fine, but it comes with a lot of issues that still keeps it from being a strong book. There's not much to really say about it because there's not much to say about any of these books, but this one had a better plot overall. No witch stuff helped a little I believe. But what I like is the concept of the club and setting it up for failure from the beginning. Because in the end it's a bunch of six year olds with pie in the sky dreams about what running a business is, so they were never going to actually succeed at this. So Karen's world has to come crashing down when she realizes this whole thing's a bust. The only problem I have with the book is that not much really happens. Not even much with the cats which I mean, this is a book about a club for cat owners, I expected a bit of stuff. I know, blame that on me giving these books more than maybe they deserve in terms of reviews. So you're left with a lot of nothing happening, which is by design given the club's failure, but still it does make this very short book somehow manage to drag. I do like that these books continue on continuity, mainly in wrapping up Karen's wrist injury story. So that stuff's always appreciated. So, yeah, I'm starting to gel with the Karen books more, this one had a decent plot, just needed more interesting stuff to happen. The era of these being multi-review will be a godsend. Anyway next is a pivotal book I guess as Karen gets glasses. So at least stuff happens I guess? Karen's Kittycat Club gets a B+. 

Jacob Two-Two Meets the Hooded Fang