Princess Super Kitty

Talk about a triple threat: with the help of a well-stocked dress-up trunk, Portis’s (Kindergarten Diary) narrator, Maggie, cumulatively culls the best qualities from three classic pretend-play personas (cat, superhero, princess) to create one awesome icon. Donning ears and a tail empowers Maggie to communicate with “Meows” and drink from a bowl; by adding a cape and stripping down to her skivvies, she can sidestep any obligations to feline napping and “look for people to rescue.” And with the addition of bling and a long dress, she can eschew the drudgeries of superherodom (“Super Kitties have to open jars for everybody in the whole world”) and bask in the adoration of her subjects (aka, her two little brothers and the family cat). Portis’s genial, direct prose and bold, playfully distilled drawings have always been a good match for stories of imagination; readers will admire not only Maggie’s powers of fantasy, but also her aplomb at moving the pretend-play goalposts to suit her fancies. This is one girl who really knows how to have it all. Ages 4–8. (Oct.)