TOM'S TWEET

A tweet’s anything but a tasty treat for fat Tom cat when his big heart gets him in trouble.

After a storm, Tom finds a dazed tweet under a tree. When he decides the baby bird is too scrawny to snack on, Tom turns tail…but it looks so frightened! “ ‘I will not take you back to your nest,’ Tom declared. / But the thing blink-blink-blinked, and…egad! / Tom was half up the tree with the poor little tyke / when its mama showed up… / fighting mad!” Tom (tweet still grasped in his teeth) escapes Mama Bird (by running through rose bushes—ouch!), but what next? Building a nest doesn’t quiet tweet’s tweets. Digging worms doesn’t help. Chewing the worms up (gulp!) and letting it snuggle does. When Mama flies off to get food, Tom gets tweet back in the nest; but he misses his wee new buddy all night. The next day, tweet’s on the ground again. “When Mama Tweet saw that old Tom was a softie, / her ‘sorry’ was long (and earsplitting). / And to prove that she trusted him, / really and truly, / she gave him a job… // tweety-sitting.” Esbaum’s tweet tale will have listeners in stitches (especially the wormy bits), and Santat’s Photoshopped cartoon illustrations of bulky Tom and the goggle-eyed tweets are as expressive as they are goofy.

Totally tweet-rific.