Where Is Tippy Toes?
Betsy Lewin, S&S/Atheneum, $16.99 (32p) ISBN 978-1-4169-3808-8
Tippy Toes is an orange cat with expressive lime-green eyes and a penchant for exploration. Gentle rhymes speculate on Tippy's self-assured movements, as die-cut pages and flaps reveal his daily (and nightly) activities. A nervous mouse in a hole knows "the soft pit pat.../ of Tippy Toes's step on his welcome mat," and when Tippy steps out for his nocturnal adventures, his zingy eyes blend in with a sky full of fireflies. Sometimes Tippy's "purring snore" gives him away, as when he sleeps in a messy dresser drawer, unveiled behind a large flap, and sometimes it's the tracks he leaves behind: "And everyone knows, but they don't know why,/ he tippy toed through the blueberry pie!" Lewin's (Click, Clack, Moo: Cows that Type) smudgy watercolors—traced with bold, chalky outlines—convey Tippy's ever-inquisitive but lovable feline nature, as he trades his nighttime wanderings to curl up with a sleeping boy beneath a starry blanket: "No, nobody knows where Tippy Toes creeps/ when darkness falls and the whole world sleeps... except me." Readers fascinated by the lives of their pets should welcome this tender offering. Ages 3–7. (July)
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Reviewed on: 07/05/2010
Genre: Children's