Karen's Kittycat Club

Baby-Sitters Little Sister #4

by Ann M. Martin

Karen forms her own club with her friend Hannie, and although the girls enjoy having their own social group, they soon find that hurt feelings and battling egos are all part of the dues

Genres: Childrens, Fiction, Middle Grade, Juvenile, Young Adult, Chapter Books, Animals

112 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1989

About the author

Ann Matthews Martin was born on August 12, 1955. She grew up in Princeton, New Jersey, with her parents and her younger sister, Jane. After graduating from Smith College, Ann became a teacher and then an editor of children's books. She's now a full-time writer.

Ann gets the ideas for her books from many different places. Some are based on personal experiences, while others are based on childhood memories and feelings. Many are written about contemporary problems or events. All of Ann's characters, even the members of the Baby-sitters Club, are made up. But many of her characters are based on real people. Sometimes Ann names her characters after people she knows, and other times she simply chooses names that she likes.

Ann has always enjoyed writing. Even before she was old enough to write, she would dictate stories to her mother to write down for her. Some of her favorite authors at that time were Lewis Carroll, P. L. Travers, Hugh Lofting, Astrid Lindgren, and Roald Dahl. They inspired her to become a writer herself.

Since ending the BSC series in 2000, Ann’s writing has concentrated on single novels, many of which are set in the 1960s.

After living in New York City for many years, Ann moved to the Hudson Valley in upstate New York where she now lives with her dog, Sadie, and her cats, Gussie, Willy and Woody. Her hobbies are reading, sewing, and needlework. Her favorite thing to do is to make clothes for children.

http://us.macmillan.com/author/annmma...

Reviews

[Renata · Rating 4 out of 5]

would like to join this club tbh

https://www.frowl.org/worstbestseller...

[Brooke · Rating 5 out of 5]

A great book as all Ann M. Martin books are!!!!!

[Olivia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I liked when she decided to make a kittycat club and they were arguing about who got to be president of the club.

[Roree · Rating 5 out of 5]

I thought it was pretty nice and cool and funny because there was one club, then they changed it, then another club called The Fun Club. And then they started doing fun stuff and if there was more then the pages would say that they did fun games.

And it writes about the author at the end, so that's pretty fun.

[Beth · Rating 3 out of 5]

Does what it says on the tin. I’m not sure why Karen skipped a grade but it does explain her friendship mistakes. I also wonder about the private school she goes to. But Karen doesn’t so I’ll never know.

[Jessica Woodring · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was cute, but I still like the first in this series better than any of the others so far. Austen still loves the Boxcar Children, but her current book obsession is “anything Karen Brewer.”

[Katie R. · Rating 5 out of 5]

The best part was at the very end of the book 📚 🐈

[Megan Laird · Rating 3 out of 5]

Ann Martin does an excellent job relating to young female readers as she tells the story of Karen, Amanda, and Hanna's building a club experience. Karen is a young animal-lover, specifically cats, who decides to start the Kittycat Club after all of her friends have cats. Karen and her friends never realized how difficult it would be to find customers for their cat-sitting services. Not only was the lack of business hard on Karen, but her friendship with Nancy was dwindling too because she was not allowed to be in the club since she had a cat. After a long period of time with no customers needing their services, the club finally decides to call it quits. Finally, Karen calls Nancy and they decide to create the Fun Club, in which anyone can join because all they will be doing is having fun. By the end of the story, all is well in the life of Karen and she finally has a working club.
This story will forever be loved by younger children. Ann Martin does an excellent job keeping attention with her short chapters and short sentences for transitional readers. The story would be better with more and colored illustrations, allowing for visual representation of the storyline. The Baby-Sitters Club will forever be in the hearts of thousands of girls thanks to Ann Martin's hard work, and is an excellent addition to any classroom. Although this novel would be good for younger readers who are transitioning from picture books to novels, this book is a keeper for all grades to allow for students to keep interest in reading. I highly recommend this book, and the rest of the series, not only for the home, but for the school, too.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

These were my favorite books in kindergarten and first grade.

[Mellanie C · Rating 4 out of 5]

I ended up donating this to my classroom. The kids really enjoy this series, and the teacher does a great job reading the books to them.

[Star ☔️ · Rating 3 out of 5]

Simple, cute book for girls just starting to read chapter books.

[D.L. · Rating 3 out of 5]

Karen is very aptly named. She's definitely a Karen in the making lol

[Leigh · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'm not sure why I'm putting myself through thus series now. Karen Brewer is the worst. She makes Henny Prezzios look perfect.
But anyway the story revolves around Karen wanting a club like big sister Kristy. She even expresses hope for being a member of the BSC one day. Heaven help the future children of Stoneybrook stuck with that sociopath. But for now she invites her two friends who also have cats over to start a kittycat club. They want to cat sit. Of course no one wants little kids to care for their cats and the only job they get is a lady who misread the flier and thought they were teenagers. And she banishes her friend Nancy from joining the club cause she doesn't have a cat which understandably ticks her off. Karen is a horrible person and she will be a terrible grown up because no one disciplined her. Come to think of it Karen Brewer is probably why the world is the way it is today. Kids didn't have disciplined when they acted out and now are growing into adults who think they know everything. Anyway in the end the cats hate each other Amanda and Hannie hate each other and the club breaks up. Karen forms a new club which is basically a bunch of kids getting together to play, probably let's all come in since that's all she wants to do in BSC books. I'll keep going, but I seriously doubt Karen will ever have any consequences for her bad and bratty behaviour.

[Brooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

I remember the cover of Karen’s Kittycat Club from childhood, so I must have read this book as a kid. The plot felt vaguely familiar, but I am sure I have different thoughts about this novel reading it as an adult than I had when I was a child. In fact, this was a fun book to read through an adult lens because there are SO. MANY. PROBLEMS. with Karen’s desire to have a cat club.

Wanting to emulate big sister Kristy’s Baby-Sitters Club, Karen decides to start her own club - a cat-sitting club! Naturally, there are problems with this idea, but that’s what this book is all about - Karen working through the issues of running her own business at the ripe old age of six. Karen’s primary rule for being a member of the Kittycat Club is that you must own a cat. She recruits two friends and excludes another on this basis. To add even more fun to the mix, the girls bring their cats to each club meeting. Consider the problem that the girls are literal kids, and the demand for cat-sitting isn’t very high in Stoneybrook, CT, and you have Karen’s Kittycat Club in a nutshell!

As a child who was also eager to start my own businesses - I literally caught wildlife, such as tadpoles, dragonflies, and toads from the swamp and tried to sell them - I get where Karen is coming from. This book teaches young kids important lessons that you have to live through on your own to figure out. I especially appreciated Ann M. Martin including the struggle over the club’s presidency. This plot point brought me right back to the childhood and the frustration I experienced having to wheedle and compromise with friends and peers, even when I knew I was right.

[Stevie Sullivan · Rating 3 out of 5]

Karen's Kittycat Club by Ann M. Martin is a cute and fun book about a 7 year old girl named Karen and her attempt on starting a cat-sitting/cat club with some of her close friends. In my personal opinion, the book was not the greatest book ever, but it was enjoyable. A couple reasons why the book wasn't so great is because one, the main character, Karen is controlling and can be a big brat. This can be stressful and annoying to readers. Two, in my opinion, the story was a bit too short and it felt as if the plot was smushed into the book. Besides that, I love the book and level of maturity the younger characters have. They do not talk as if they are 7 whatsoever! Overall, I would recommend this book to children within the age group of 9-12.

[Christine · Rating 3 out of 5]

Karen wished she were old enough to be in the Baby-Sitters Club like her stepsister, Kristy. When her friend Hannie got a kitten, Karen decided to form her own club called the Kittycat Club. The knock-off version of the BSC specialized in cat-sitting and required members to bring their pet cats to meetings. Karen did not care that her friends and fellow club members, Hannie and Amanda, hated each other, nor did she care that her friend Nancy could not join the club because she did not own a cat. Unsurprisingly, no one wanted to hire an elementary school-aged girl to cat-sit. In the end, Karen adapted the club to involve all her friends. This was just an okay read for me, but I am bumping it up to 3 stars for the nostalgia factor.

[Katie · Rating 3 out of 5]

Karen wants to form a club, and her two friends in Dad's neighborhood both have cats. So they form the Kittycat Club. Modeling after Kristy's BSC, they make it a cat-sitting club. But don't get any customers because no one wants a six-year-old to cat-sit. So Karen makes a new club just to have fun. Seems a little much for a 6-year-old to even make it as far as she did forming this club, making flyers, etc.

[Annora · Rating 1 out of 5]

This is one of the worst Little Sister books.

I have often thought that Karen, Nancy, and Hannie will not be friends as they get older. Karen outright bullies her friends! She knows Hannie and Amanda don’t get along, but she essentially makes them play together. She excludes Nancy.

She bosses her friends around. If she doesn’t get mature when she ages, the Three Musketeers will scone The One Muskebrat.

[Ashley · Rating 5 out of 5]

I'm sure every young girl in the 90s tried their hand at some kind of -sitting club, ours was pet-sitting (because who wants to be responsible for kids?) We never got any jobs, but we also probably low-key didn't want any because the real fun was hanging out and making signs.

It's also wild to me thinking about these 7-year-olds just carrying their cats around the neighbourhood. My cat would never have let me.

[Sayo -bibliotequeish-]

I would rather in a kittycat club then be a babysitter.
Karens onto something with this one.

When you were too old for childrens books, but too young for The Baby Sitters Club.
Ann M. Martin really is a genius to piggy back on the success of The Baby Sitters Club.

After reading the little sisters series I remember feeling like a real adult opening up that first BSC book.

[Elise · Rating 3 out of 5]

I thought this book was well written. Karen wanted to start a cat sitting business to be like her big sister Kristy with the BSC, but it doesn't work out cause realistically, they are too young for it. I do think Nancy should have been invited to join the club and could have borrowed the little house cat rocky.

[Chloe (Always Booked) · Rating 3 out of 5]

3.5 stars. I liked this book but its my least favorite in the series so far. Karen wants to be like Kristy with the BSC so she starts a KittyCat Club with her 2 best friends. The idea is that they will cat sit but they're only 6, 7, and 8 so there are a few problems. The club has rules that doesn't make a lot of sense and it all kind of blows up. Theres a lesson learned but this was just okay.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

Karen starts a KittyCat Club that includes her two best friends and their cats. With some advice from her big sister Kristy, she gets her plan in motion but is a bit too young to look after others pets so she starts another club.

[Dr. Danielle Desfosses · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved how this book showed Karen reevaluating her goals and showed empathy, taking responsibility for any damage she may have caused in the wake of her pursuit!

Ann Martin's later books are also spectacular.

Dr.Danielle
The Human Development Expert
Merging brain science with storytelling

[Rozha]

It’s the best book yet in the world wow

[Coco · Rating 3 out of 5]

add more to this story

[Salise' Lyons]

it intereasting and has parts to the book so u have to have the whole series and read it in order for it

[Eden Witt · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought it was funny when Karen was thinking about a name for the cat club and instead of saying perfect she said perrrrfect

[Alex · Rating 3 out of 5]

As always, these are so much better in audio form!

[Kim]

If I have one should be here
https://multiscreenmotivision.wordpre...