Ottoline and the Yellow Cat by Chris Riddell
Ottoline is a girl who lives in a fancy apartment with a bog troll named Mr. Munroe as her companion while her parents travel the world sending back oddities for their many collections. Ottoline enjoys solving tricky problems. So when a rash of burglaries occur in the apartment buildings in her neighborhood, Ottoline scans newspaper articles for clues and tracks down the burglar with the help of Mr. Munroe and a very large bear.
Ottoline is a combination of Eloise and Harriet the Spy – an on-her-own wealthy girl with notebooks of clues and a penchant for spying on the neighbors. The delight of this story is in the illustrations. Riddell who illustrated the Edge Chronicles creates great pictures of Ottoline’s apartment and its many collection. He also brings to life through his illustrations the misfit gang of thieving lapdogs and the struggles of the bog troll to master the art of disguise. This was a whacky tale that was a lot of fun – most especially the illustrations.
I recommend it to those who liked Buckley’s Sisters Grimm mystery books or The Ratbridge Chronicles by Alan Snow. It has so many illustrations it is almost a chapter/picture book. It makes a great bridge to longer fiction for those just ready for something more challenging than beginning chapter books. I also think it’d be a fun one to read together with an older child (K – 3 grade).
171p., 2008