Review: Karen's Worst Day by Katy Farina (Baby-sitters Little Sister Graphix 3)

Karen's Worst Day was always one of the more cute, fun and ultimately relatable books in the original series. Katy Farina does an excellent job of adapting that story to graphic novel format in this, the third book in the series. From the moment six year old Karen wakes at her dad's house on Saturday morning, everything starts to go wrong. First she falls out of bed. Then she discovers that she has left her favourite pair of jeans at her mum's house. Then there's no prize in the cereal box ... and so Karen's day continues, with things going wrong at every twist and turn. All the things that go wrong might be little things, but they're also big things for a six-year-old, particularly when nothing seems to be going right. Fortunately, thanks to the kindness of her family, things eventually make a turn for the better.

This one is a great read for kids, one that emphasises the validity of feeling frustrated and of the little things that can give kids joy. It's also lovely to see how Karen's older step siblings work together to help turn things around. As always, Katy Farina's illustrations are very well done. That said, I was very disappointed to see that there was no mention of Mister Ed (one of my favourite things about the original--and I feel for you Karen, I still remember my own disappointment when Channel 7 took reruns of that off the air in the early 1990s.)

A fitting tribute to the original, and nicely updated for contemporary readers.

Recommended.


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