Review by Woodrow Phoenix

Perspectives is the second Cat Kid Comic Club, the series derived from Dog Man by Dav Pilkey. In particular, it’s generated by the exercises at the back of each Dog Man teaching young readers how to draw characters featured in the stories, here extended into a complete how-to set of instructions. Book One was like a classroom in a book, showing through the teaching of Cat Kid and his assistant Flippy how to write and draw a comic strip based on a few simple rules for inventing characters and situations that any child could follow.

Here we are back in the classroom with the little frog pupils, in week two of Cat Kid Comic Class. But this volume is not as straightforwardly instructive as the first, with fewer actual lessons and more time spent with the students as they show us what they have learned and take us through the stories they have created. The theme of Perspectives is applied not just to drawings, but also how to see things from someone else’s point of view, which is demonstrated though feisty little Naomi and her brother Melvin, who featured in the first volume as two very competitive siblings. They are the focus of this volume with lots of amusing arguments and challenges. Their double act is fun, but with lots of attention on their ideas, their behaviour, their relationship with their dad Flippy, their stories and a few example stories from the other children too, Cat Kid himself doesn’t really feature that much. This book has fewer practical tips and suggestions and the overall educational vibe is more about understanding what motivates kids to create.

Perspectives is just as entertaining as all Dav Pilkey’s books and the classes continue in book three: On Purpose.