By Samantha Bradley | Photo by Nick Bruel

As a mom, I am always looking for adventurous children’s books to read to my son, Marcelino. Recently, I came across a few books from author and illustrator Nick Bruel and fell in love with the books due to their comical and witty content.

Nick Bruel is a very successful children’s author, illustrator and cartoonist who has had over 25 books published. Twenty of the books are part of the “Bad Kitty” series, and the other five are all picture books.

In college, Nick had aspirations to become a cartoonist. He was able to sell syndicated comic strips to a few local newsweeklies. He also worked at a local bookstore in New York City called Book’s Of Wonder. While he was working at that store, he decided to combine his two interests —books and cartooning — to create manuscripts to submit to publishers. Everything came together quickly and soon his career took off.

Nick’s newest book, “Bad Kitty Takes The Test,” recently hit stores. As the title suggests, Kitty has to take an important test that will determine if she deserves to be a cat. Nick said that, even though they may not like the idea, he knows that kids really care about testing, so he felt they would easily be able to relate to Kitty’s situation.

For more information on Nick Bruel or any of his books, please visit his website at Nickbruel.com.