Cat & Dog: A Tale of Opposites - book review - 9.14.21

Concept books used to be books - often board books - that would be all about a concept that is important for young readers to learn.  Alphabet and numeral books, books about colors and shapes, opposites and preposition words and phrases.  There weren't stories included in most of these books, usually they were more about the illustrations in order to make the concept be very clear.  However in recent years there has been a shift in these stories.  They are still usually very clear in teaching a concept, but as the reader goes through the book, a story emerges through the illustrations.

Cat & Dog: A Tale of Opposites

by Tullio Corda

published by Red Comet Press

In Cat & Dog: A Tale of Opposites, each layout has two words that are opposites (inside, outside and slow, fast).  However, as the reader goes through the story, we see there is more that is happening with our main characters - a dog and a cat.  It starts with introducing them as being awake (the cat) and asleep (the dog).  But as the brave cat wakes up the afraid dog, we see their personalities start to emerge.  The dog isn't thrilled with the cat's decision, but the cat clearly wants someone to play with it.  My favorite page shows the dog quite upset and the opposite side of the layout has the cat licking it's paw and the word is "unconcerned"!  But when the animals eventually go outside, it's the cat who gets a little scare and the dog that ends up the hero.  So even though the entire story is told in single or two word phrases, there is actually a story line within the illustrations that creates an actual plot line for the book. I also appreciated that the author didn't stick to typical opposite words, but has some unconventional ones inside, like the above example of "upset" and "unconcerned".  I'll let you discover some of the other fun ones!

If you are thinking about using this book in your classroom, be sure to check out this downloadable activity kit!

Check out this YouTube video of the author explaining more about this fun book!

Thank you to Barbara at Blue Slip Media for the review copy!

Happy - and definitely not sad - reading!!