The Cat on the Mat is Flat
by: Andy Griffiths. Illustrated by Terry Denton
Published by: Feiwel and Friends
Buy From Amazon.com
Reviewed by Patty Inglish
Mice are chasing cats with baseball bats on the cover of this book. In one corner is a rhyme spouting “Crash! Bang! Pow! Kersplack! This book may cause a light attack!” Truly, it does just that. The illustrations remind me of the 1940s and Felix the Cat and make me smile in the same way. The catchy rhymes in the story line are like a Dr. Seuss tale, especially The Cat in the Hat, but with more baseball bats.
This collection of stories is fun albeit with a touch of mayhem. The clobbered cat on a mat is cuckoo with a concussion (one hopes this is not copied at home by the little tykes that have enjoyed the story). The next story, “Ed and Ted and Ted’s Dog Fred” is hilarious as it includes a hundred rhymes, a dead-end road, and a whale. It also has a happy ending.” “Frog on a Log in a Bog” is quite funny as well, with its must-be-supernaturally-power-driven logs. The funniest sight is the warthog that drives one of the logs like a Harley motorcycle!
The Cat on the Mat is Flat contains nine rhyming stories in all, speaking of yaks and snacks and trucks and ducks, kangaroos and superglue. The ducks will surely cause youngsters to want to rhyme their “ucks” by beginning them with every consonant of the alphabet–and college students at a party will likely do the same, to a hilarious ending, no doubt.
This is a good book for beginning readers, in the same vein as The Cat in the Hat and The Cat in the Hat Comes Back. It will likely spark a new rhyming nation of happy youngsters, some of whom will grow up to write their generation’s outrageously funny advertising jingles.
Armchair Interviews says: Any beginning reader will find it charmingly slapstick and fun.
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