Katie the Catsitter

Fiction | Graphic Novel/Book | Middle Grade | Published in 2021

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Summary

Background

Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Chapters 1-3

Chapters 4-7

Chapters 8-11

Chapters 12-15

Character Analysis

Themes

Symbols & Motifs

Important Quotes

Essay Topics

Tools

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Discussion Questions

Symbols & Motifs

The Cats

Katie the Catsitter is very concerned about the abuse and mistreatment of animals. The cats’ abilities and exaggerated intelligence act as a reminder that animals are thinking, feeling beings who deserve to be treated with care and respect. The cats’ abilities also foreground their working relationship with the Mousetress. When Ms. Lang is eventually caught and arrested, the specific, useful things that they’re able to do make it possible for Katie to rescue her.

While this obviously does not reflect the real world—cats cannot orchestrate a jailbreak—the novel is interested in the ways that animals have helped humanity throughout history. In her speech at the animal rights protest, Ms. Lang points to several examples where animals have improved and saved human lives. In this way, the cats symbolize that working relationship, and by rendering them with their own strengths, skills, and personalities, the novel underscores how animal cruelty is abhorrent and misguided.

The cats also provide the opportunity for Katie to model what a more ideal and healthy relationship with animals could look like. She takes the time to learn their names and individual quirks; she treats them with care and consideration; and eventually she learns that she must earn their respect, rather than the other way around.

The Postcards

At the beginning of the novel, Katie and Bethany are best friends. Their closeness is evident in the way they talk and the time they spend together, but also in the fact that they have exchanged shoes (each have one green shoe and one pink, and they are opposite colors in opposite feet), and have dyed their hair a matching color. When Bethany leaves for camp, the two promise to write one another every day, and Bethany gives Katie a matching set of markers so they can both decorate the postcards they send one another. From this point on, the postcards—and how elaborately they are decorated—symbolize the connection and closeness between Katie and Bethany.

At first, the friends exchange postcards almost daily. Katie decorates hers with the markers, while Bethany’s contain copious amounts of stickers, little drawings, and one with a leaf from camp. They talk about how much they miss one another and how they can’t wait for Katie to arrive at camp. However, as the summer progresses, Katie becomes invested in the cats and her budding relationship with Ms. Lang, while Bethany becomes preoccupied with a boy she has a crush on. Their writing becomes focused on themselves; they begin ignoring what the other person says; and the postcards arrive less frequently. Most importantly, the postcards that are sent are plain, lacking the same time and care that the earlier ones had in their design and decoration.

Katie and Bethany have begun to grow and change over the summer. The plain postcards reflect this and mark the deterioration of their friendship. Katie struggles with this at first but learns that it is a natural thing that can happen as people get older.

The Wax Museum of Justice

The museum symbolizes the narcissism and ostentatiousness of the novel’s superheroes. When Katie becomes concerned that Ms. Lang could be the Mousetress, she takes a trip to The Wax Museum of Justice with her mom. She hopes to learn more information about the Mousetress to dispel her fears, but before she can do so, she is subjected to an adulating—and borderline propagandistic—tour of the city’s superheroes of past and present. All the heroes on display are both very silly and appear to be praised simply because they have the reputation of being a superhero, rather than because they help people. The tour guide, Cold Hands, is clearly a superhero as well, and is mainly interested in shepherding the crowd toward his own exhibit to build popularity. He grows frustrated that everyone just wants to see the Eastern Screech exhibit, and it becomes clear that the museum, much like the heroes it depicts, is not interested in justice. Instead, it is a gaudy and pretentious display.

This is driven home further when Katie sneaks off to find the Mousetress exhibit in the supervillain wing of the museum. The statue is huge, looks monstress, and is nothing like Ms. Lang. Later, when Katie meets Cold Hands on her balcony, he admits no one has ever seen the Mousetress, and that the statue is based on conjecture. Focused on fighting for the cause she believes in, the Mousetress doesn’t have time to engage in PR campaigns like the Eastern Screech. The novel juxtaposes the two figures, suggesting that the Mousetress represents true heroism.