by Michael Hall
Greenwillow, 2012. Unpaged. Picture book.
Three cats--Lillian, Tilly, and William J.--go on an excursion with many adventures in rhyming and illustrating homophones: "They flee a steer/ They steer a plane/ They plane a board/ They board a train. . . ." Part way through their lilting linguistic journey, things fall apart: "They use their paws to shoo a train. A shoo-shoo train? No! They use a shoe to steer a box? No! They use a box to steer a steer? No, no, no!" But then the cats' tale/tail comes into play and off they go to the end of their delightful story. Hall's brightly colored geometric illustrations highlight and propel the cats' wordplay. Cat Tale is a perfect beginning literacy text, but is also a total gas.
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