The Foot Book (review by Valeria Niell)

Dr. Seuss gifts us The Foot Book, perfect to read along with young children because of its short and repetitive phrases and attracting drawings.

The Foot Book describes all sort of feet and the characters are simple and funny, like doodles, and they clearly express what the words depict. For example, for “slow feet” there’s a big monster denoting laziness with his long ears and arms hanging still, and there’s a sense of calmness in his eyes and smile. We can easily imagine him walking in slow motion. And for “trick feet” there’s a dog juggling with his feet.

The most interesting feature of this engaging book is the rhyme and the repetition of phrases, encouraging the young reader to “foresee” or anticipate what the words will read (to cite an instance , the repetition of “Here come...”).

Dr. Seuss plays with words and their sounds creating rhymes, like “In the house and on the street, how many, many feet you meet”.

The presence of rhymes and repeated phrases is an excellent resource in children's books, because the readers will never sound dull or boring due the melody these rhymes give to their voice. I recommend this book because it will help young readers/listeners to include new words to their vocabulary, such as adjectives (since all the feet in The Foot Book are accompanied by an attribute: Sick, slow, fuzzy, etc.) and opposites (small and big, etc.).