Klawde: Evil Alien Warlord Cat

Klawde: Evil Alien Warlord Cat
by Emily Chenoweth and Johnny Marciano
Recommended Ages: 10+

Raj has just moved with his parents from New York City to a tiny town in Oregon, and life has lost all its zest for him. But then comes a green flash of light, and a cat appears on his doorstep, and things start to turn around for Raj. Klawde, as his father names him, is actually no ordinary cat. He's really an evil alien warlord from a distant galaxy, beamed into exile on earth, where the desendants of long-ago banished cats have lost their wits and become mere animals. I mean, who else but Raj has a cat that speaks English, uses a toilet and reads the Wall Street Journal?

Both Raj and Klawde have tough times ahead of them, however. Raj has to go to a wilderness survival camp by day, run by a crazy mountain man who feels his mission is to prepare campers for a coming apocalypse. Meanwhile, Klawde is struggling to build a teleportation device to return to his planet and begin his reconquest, despite Earth being technologically backward and his paws not having opposable thumbs. And though, as an evil alien warlord cat, he understands the concept of "love" only as some type of mental illness, Klawde also discovers that when his human calls for help, he is compelled to respond.

Goofiness is the rule of the day in this semi-graphic novel/chapter book. And it might not be quite honest to say that Klawde grows as a, erm, person. But Raj comes out of his shell a bit, makes some friends, scores a victory in a challenge that seemed hopeless for him from the beginning, and shows some grit when it really matters. Though most earth cats' vocabular doesn't extend far beyond "Mrow," the highly articulate Klawde is evil in a way that might pluck a familiar, and perhaps even fond, string in the hearts of cat lovers. After all, that crazy mountain guy isn't all wrong when he says house cats are the most environmentally destructive force outside the human race. So one may feel a low-key horror, combined with a certain perverse glee, to think of what Raj and Klawde might get up to next.

This is the first book of at least six in a series by the same name, written and illustrated to appeal to middle-grade kids. Subsequent titles include Enemies, The Spacedog Cometh, Target: Earth, Emperor of the Universe and Revenge of the Kitten Queen. Chenoweth is also the author of the novel Hello Goodbye and, as Emily Raymond, has co-authored several books with James Patterson. Marciano is also the author-illustrator of The 66th Rebirth of Frankie Caridi and, as John Bemelmans Marciano, a biographer of his grandfather, "Madeline" creator Ludwig Bemelmans; author or co-author with Ludwig of several Madeline stories; and the author of six "Witches of Benevento" books, the novel The No-Good Nine, the novellas Harold's Tail and The Nine Lives of Alexander Baddenfield, a couple children's picture books and the nonfiction book Whatever Happened to the Metric System?.