A Chihuahua babysits kittens in exchange for a promised army of minions.Directly following the events of Poodle of Doom (2022), this third series entry sees future Dark Lord Ember on "a night of DESTINY." He strikes a deal with a mysterious orange cat, agreeing to not only watch her kittens, but train them in the ways of evil. Ember's lust for power comes at a bad time, though-his human Lucy Chin's eighth birthday is three days away, and he needs to find her the perfect present. Before he can scheme up a solution with the other Chin family pets, a box of kittens appears in the yard. Worse, Ogre-a neighborhood cat with a sourpuss attitude-seems intent on sabotaging everything. All signs point to cat-astrophe unless Ember and friends can save the day-and find Lucy the right gift. Tan Shiau Wei's black-and-white illustrations complement the laugh-out-loud chaos with cinematic cartoon scenes. Lucy's birthday-planning conversations lightly touch on fears of classmates yucking her yum (red bean and green tea ice cream). Tan deftly steers the plot-and other kids' responses-into an affirming rather than othering experience. The Chin family is cued Chinese. Party attendees are diverse in skin tone and include Lucy's brown-skinned friend Arjun and his two dads.A furball of nonstop feline fun. (questions and activities) (Humor. 6-8)

Gr 1–3— In his own mind, Lucy Chin's chihuahua, Ember, is destined for world domination! Being the future Dark Lord that he is, he will one day rule the world. What could be more necessary than having an army to help him meet that destiny? But wait! What army? Where is it? Fear not! The mysterious orange cat who shows up on Ember's windowsill in the middle of the night, when everyone and everything in the house is asleep, has the solution: merely cat-sit her five kittens for a couple days and teach them everything he knows, and they will serve as Ember's army! All of Ember's BFFs are there to help train the kittens—Neo the canary, BeBe the beetle, Smelly Steve the hamster, and Bubbles the Goldfish. But kittens will be kittens, and before Ember can rally his new troop, it's total kitty chaos! There's lots of action and high drama as Ember and the pets frantically work to corral the high-speed kittens and train them to stand as "Ember's Army!" This third volume in Scholastic's Branches line of early chapter book series for new readers features high-interest characters that run, crawl, swim, and fly, with easy-to-read text, simple vocabulary with only an occasional unfamiliar word printed in bold font to draw readers' attention, and plenty of black-and-white drawings that help push the fast-paced story along. VERDICT Recommended for newly independent readers who will get caught up in this latest page-turning adventure of future Dark Lord Ember's quest to rule the world.— Cheryl Blevens