Review Detail

Cat on the Run in Cucumber Madness! (Cat on the Run #2)

Middle Grade Fiction 156

The perils of internet fame... and cucumbers

August 06, 2024

Overall rating

4.0

Plot

4.0

Characters

4.0

Writing Style

4.0

Illustrations/Photos (if applicable)

4.0

After Princess Beautiful's adventures in Cat of Death, she was left in a perilous position. Worldwide news media is in a frenzy, predicting that she wants to end the world. She does, after all, have a head full of nuclear codes. Her boyfriend, Catrick Cash, maintains that she is innocent, but Marshall Cheeseman is ready to hunt her down. Princess Beautiful has been kidnapped, and when she comes out of the tranquilizer gun medicine, she finds that her captor is Marv, who knows what it is like to be a scapegoat. Yes, he is actually a goat, but he really wants to help the cat on the run out. He has taken her to Bratislava, and sets her off on a self-guided training course for which she is using videos on the Pizza Guy's phone. This, unbeknownst to her, alerts Marshall Cheeseman to her whereabouts. Marv had seen the scorpion on Princess Beautiful's computer screen when she was ostensibly downloading nuclear codes, and lured her into his van by painting a scorpion on it, but has pinpointed the real source to a scorpion shaped set of islands. He borrows a boat from a friend, and soon the two are off to uncover whatever secretes can be found there. Princess Beautiful shares with Marv her tragic origin story; she was going to a good college, planning to have a useful and successful career, when her friend scared her with a cucumber, and the video went viral. She made several other videos so she didn't look foolish, and a social media star was born. Once on the island, they see some actual scorpions, which don't bother our intrepid heroine, but also a giant cucumber patch, which throws her into a temporary tizzy. This is, of course, what Marshall Cheeseman captures on video when he arrives, and the media again posit this as proof she is a danger to the world. Catrick shows up with his father. Marv wants to speak to her right away, and she has to choose whom to trust. She chooses to talk to Marv, and he helps her to understand what is going on with the Cashes. It's truly frightening, and certainly sets the stage for book number three.

Good Points

I'm not quite sure how much younger readers will understand about the media frenzy and Tiffany Fluffit's scare tactics, but this is goofy enough that it doesn't matter. This concentrates more on Princess Beautiful's survival rather than her social media presence, but also addresses some of the pitfalls that exist when one's life is lived in public. Many of my students list as their career aspirations "YouTuber", so Princess Beautiful's notoriety will be taken seriously by the tween set.

There are lots of inside jokes that will make this appeal to older readers as well; some of the training scenes are reminscent of The Karate Kid, and Marv's explanation of what a scapegoat is was excellent. There are other Easter eggs, I'm sure; I didn't know that cats being scared by cucumbers was a thing on the internet, but it apparently is. My students will know this, and understand the title right away.

Blabey's illustrations are always exuberant, and filled with silly characters and improbably situations. I imagine that breakfast in his house is amusing. "What's a sillier sounding place for Princess Beautiful to be... Bratislava or... Schenectady? You're right. If she's in Eastern Europe, there can be a joke about too much sedative." I do enjoy the tiny bits of red accents in the drawings, which are expecially delightful when they show up in hair bows or cell phone alerts.

Blabey's Bad Guys series is something of a comfort read for middle schoolers, and I'm sure that they will enjoy the zany, pandemonium filled Nutty Bar that is Cat on the Run. Hand this to fans of Angleberger's The Two-Headed Chicken, Rex's Fangbone, Brockington's Castronauts, or the Geronimo Stilton books.