Klawde: Evil Alien Warlord Cat No. 1. By Johnny Marciano and
Emily Chenoweth. Illustrated by Robb Mommaerts. Penguin Workshop. $14.99.
Klawde: Evil Alien Warlord Cat No. 2—Enemies. By Johnny Marciano and
Emily Chenoweth. Illustrated by Robb Mommaerts. Penguin Workshop. $14.99.
One of the cleverest and silliest series
of novels for middle-school readers in quite some time, Klawde: Evil Alien Warlord Cat evokes laughter even from its title.
“Klawde” as in “clawed,” OK, but “evil alien warlord cat”? What can that be about? Turns out that it’s about
Lord High Emperor Wyss-Kuzz (not
pronounced “whiskers”), the Magnificent, from the planet Lyttyrboks (not pronounced “litter box”), a reigning
feline so implacable, so cruel, so thoroughly evil that the cat court in charge of such things revives a
long-abandoned practice of exile to a planet of “carnivorous ogres” far away
across the universe. Wyss-Kuzz is to be sent to – Earth. Well, of course! And
of course he is going to have some, err, adaptation to do.
Enter Raj Banerjee, young human being. Raj
and his parents have just moved from Brooklyn, New York, to the small town of
Elba, Oregon, where his mom has gotten a new and better job. Now Raj has adaptation to do, and he is not
liking it in the least: all the outdoors
out in Oregon, the lack of nearby pizza places and comic-book stores, and the
lack of nearby friends or, in fact, any friends at all. Obviously Wyss-Kuzz and
Raj are made for each other. They just don’t know it yet.
This would be a fairly ordinary
fish-out-of-water story (well, characters-out-of-water, anyway) if Wyss-Kuzz –
who soon gets the Earth name Klawde from Raj’s father – were not such a
hilarious blend of traditional villainy and inescapable felinity. Of course,
the cat comes from a highly advanced, spacefaring race with technology far
beyond what mere humans possess, and is cast away on our poor benighted planet,
where he has to figure out how to survive while staying focused on his primary
driving force: revenge against the underling who has taken over his position as
ruler, General FFangg (not pronounced
“fang” – part of the amusement here comes from the distinctly Earthlike names
the alien cats possess). The first book in the series is all about Klawde’s
attempts to make himself appear harmless and Earth-cat-like so he can plot his
return to his home planet and take over again. The book is also about Raj’s
attempts to fit into his new community: his parents agree to let him keep
Klawde only if Raj consents to going to an outdoor camp, which turns out to be
run by the ultimate counselor-from-hell, who calls himself Turkey Vulture and
is pretty clearly unhinged.
Along the way, Klawde reveals who he really
is to Raj, needing Raj’s help with various things on Earth, and Raj gladly
keeps Klawde’s secret, and the two soon become best friends. But Klawde is
still a cat, and an evil-ruler one, at that. At one point Klawde is about to
enter the teleporter he has constructed for his return to Lyttyrboks when he is
interrupted by “the long-furred ogre,” otherwise known as “the mother-Human.”
He is about to scratch her when Klawde (who narrates alternating chapters, with
Raj doing the others) says “she turned to me. ‘If you try it, I’ll skin you
alive and turn you into a fur hat.’ Finally, a Human I could respect. I stood
down.” That is Klawde all over – and the illustrations that Robb Mommaerts adds
to the text by Johnny Marciano and Emily Chenoweth show this scene and many
others (definitely including those involving Turkey Vulture) to perfection.
Well, Klawde does not quite get back to
his home planet at the end of the first book, and that sets things up for the
second, in which travel between Lyttyrboks and Earth starts to become a lot
more common. It turns out that General FFangg himself has now been betrayed and
ousted – these are cats, remember,
and loyalty is not their strong suit – by none other than Klawde’s “loyal
minion, Flooffee-Fyr” (not pronounced
however the heck it would be pronounced on Earth). Now General Ffangg has
himself been exiled to Earth – just what Klawde did not need. And on the Raj
side of things, a onetime friend, or really frenemy, has suddenly turned up in
Elba, Oregon – just what Raj did not
need. So in the second book as in the first, we have parallel and intersecting
stories that are funny in themselves and downright hilarious in combination
(Klawde is a cat, which means that when
he gets really busy and involved in a project one day, he can only manage to
take 17 naps). The second book is further complicated by Klawde’s determination
to train new minions, or some sort of
army, to help him retake Lyttyrboks; but of course the only available cats are Earth cats, who are thoroughly
unsatisfactory for the purpose – except maybe for one female kitten who does
have potential. The battle between Klawde and General Ffangg for control of the
Earth cats leads to a series of very funny scenes, several of which involve
distinctly feline traumas, including getting thoroughly soaked with water and
losing tail fur. The constant reminders of just how catlike Klawde is, coupled
with his always-scowling appearance and his obvious, if feckless, ruthlessness,
make Klawde: Evil Alien Warlord Cat a
truly wonderful series; and although Raj has far less personality than does
Klawde, he makes a fine foil for the real star (or starcat) of the show. The
books are fun because they are so adeptly written and paced, because they are so
amusingly illustrated, and – well, just be-klaws.
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