Book Review of Thumpy Feet by Betsy Lewin

 

1.      Bibliography

Lewin, Betsy. 2013. Thumpy Feet. Holiday House. ISBN: 9780823429011.

2.      Plot Summary

This book follows a cat and their day around the house.  First, they eat, then take a bath by licking, play with their mouse toy, they get tired and take a nap, and finally they wake up to find a yarn ball.  You can tell the life of a cat is pretty good when you see all the different activities they do during the day. 

3.      Critical Analysis

In this playful book, we follow an orange tabby cat and what it does during the day at home.  The words are playful and repeat multiple times, thumpy, foodie, smacky, licky, looky, mousy, pouncy, flippy, yawny, noddy, and snoozy.  The words are also all over the pages and not in typical left to right format.  You can find all capital words and big text, along with exclamation points to get the different emotions of this cat.  The words go down the page and get smaller or bigger to keep the interest of small children. 

The illustrations that Lewin uses look like paint, and you can see the strokes that she has made in each picture.  She chose bright colors for the cat and outlined them in black to really stand out against the page.  Lewin had made multiple different facial expressions for the cat including content from eating, excited from seeing a toy, and tired when the cat was ready for a nap.  If you have a cat at home, you can tell these faces fit exactly what a cat looks like in real life. 

This story will make all children want to go out and play with a cat, the words are fun, and the cat is happy and playful. 

4.      Review Excerpt(s)

With great economy of images and words—but still enormously playful—Lewin depicts a friendly, goofy feline’s almost zen-like existence. The introduction to the star of the show is simple: “Here comes Thumpy Feet! Thumpy thumpy thumpythump thumpy.” A series of spreads goes on to capture the cat’s single-minded focus on his activities whether it is eating (“Smacky smacky”), preening (Licky lick!), playing (Pouncy pounce!) and so on. Large, loose watercolors on white backgrounds zoom in on the bright orange cat while the rhythmic text bounces across the spread, emphasizing the frisky kitty’s romp. The pages illustrating the cat’s playtime are an especially astonishing study of the animal’s supple motion. Inspired, youngsters might mirror the cat’s actions. Tots used to books ending with sleepy time will be delightfully surprised when the snoozing cat is awoken by a ball of yarn . . . and off he goes. The last thing readers see are Thumpy Feet’s hindquarters, leaving them to wonder about his next series of adventures. This one will leave children happy, happy. Preschool-Grade 1. --Jeanne McDermott (Booklist Review)

5.      Connections

*This is a good rhyming book for children and offers silly words for them to connect a rhyme with.

*This book also teaches young children that words can be in different places in the book, not just left to right.  The words also can have more emphasis when you use all capital letters or make the words bigger.