Tumford the Terrible

PreS-Gr 2—Tumford the cat can't bring himself to apologize after he breaks dishes, tramples the garden, or knocks over paint cans. He chokes on the words, "I'm sorry," and hides to avoid saying them to his kind owners. The elderly couple love Tummy anyway. In fact, they even take him to a fair after he promises to apologize for any mess he might make. There he knocks a dish of kippers on the Village Fair Queen and hides until he realizes that saying "sorry" might make the Stoutts proud and happy. The entire crowd cheers his apology. The artwork, done in collage and paint, includes varying amounts of detail and white space, but all feature the feline. Sometimes Tumford moves about like other black-and-white cats, but in other illustrations, he strides upright wearing yellow rubber boots. Other characters are secondary, as they probably are in Tummy's self-centered universe. The rhymed couplets reinforce the same message Tillman included in earlier books: no matter what a child (or cat) does, unconditional love prevails. Those who prefer a less cloying and more nuanced look at learning to apologize might consider Samantha Berger's Martha Doesn't Say Sorry! (Little, Brown, 2009). Collections in which Tillman's previous works circulate might want this title, but others can probably pass.—Kathy Piehl, Minnesota State University, Mankato