Toes Paperback – February 21, 2006

I have to respond to the "Reader in Vancouver" who slammed this book. My daughters, who are 8 and 6 (and advanced readers, as well as cat lovers) loved this book, and so did I. No, Toes's abilities are not realistic, yet neither is the book a magical fantasy. It's more the sort of story one would make up about a beloved cat. I cried at the end, when Toes is dying, but it's important for children to learn that death is an inevitable part of life. Toes's death is sad, but his life and what he does for his friend, the musician, mean that his memory will live on. I would especially recommend this book for families where a beloved pet (or family member, for that matter) is growing old. Its lesson might help provide comfort when a child has to deal with grief.

My favorite book as a kid. Bought for my son and he loves it too!

Her Favorite Book, she kept getting it from the library so we just bought it. She loves this book. and it was easy to find on amazon on my I Phone.

Great little book

Toes is an intelligent cat, figuring out the world by watching television (with a fondness for nature documentaries) and a rational approach. (For readers who don't like animals that rationalize, I'll suggest the book Are We Smart Enough to Know How Smart Animals Are?.) Of course this is a fantastic story, with improbabilities, but the voice is consistent, the premises clear. Toes, a polydactylous cat, earned my affection for his positive personality, and when he is bullied and leaves home more by circumstance than plan, I'm fully invested. Now, I'm talking about this book as though it were written for adults, but it's actually a children's book.(starting age 8, although this adult loved it,) that deals even in the first chapter, with death and limitations. For all Toes' cleverness, he remains a cat. He cannot talk, except to other cats and mice, and even his friend the dove and he cannot actually converse. His mother dies in the first chapter, his siblings die, and before the end, he too accepts the imminence of death. The clear-eyed simplicity in this inclusion of death as a fact would be comforting, I suspect, to any child or adult who has lost or will lose a beloved animal friend. More than this, the main theme of the book is Toes' friendships, first with the human Sebastian who saves him from starvation and delights Toes' soul with classical music from his violin, and then the dove Miranda, with whom Toes will never speak. Friendship comes with its own costs, including having to contradict or face down a friend who is about to make a mistake. Toes passes this test with Sebastian in a scene based in failure and insecurity and involving alcohol. Friendship involves the ability to think creatively about the friend's needs and abilities, and in this too, Toes weaves his way into Sebastian's life in a fashion that the reader anticipates lasting long beyond Toes' death. Friendship also includes the desire to spare a friend pain, and this last service Toes accomplishes as best he can when he makes his way home to his mother's grave, before he also dies. The gentle glow of friendship, the yearning to achieve, and the melancholy of loss give this little book a tenderness that lasts beyond its actual length, and the tale of Sebastian the violinist, remains elegantly incomplete save in the reader's mind.

----------------------------------"Toes"Written by Tor Seidler(Harper Collins, 2004)----------------------------------This is a well-written and utterly heartbreaking story about a gifted cat, named "Toes" because of a mutation that gave him seven toes on each paw. Shunned by his siblings, Toes becomes a bit of a loner and "weird kid," sitting in front of the TV rather than endure their taunts and torments. A clever kitten, he secretly learns to work the TV remote and teaches himself English by watching all the daytime shows - a media-rich education that serves him surprisingly well in the real world, when fate sends him outside. I don't want to give away the *whole* plot, but suffice it to say that this is a very absorbing, emotionally rich book with a very sad (dead cat) ending. The final act of the book deals with the inevitable doom of Toes, who is clever but has bad genes, and ranks up there with hard-to-read-out-loud super-sad classics such as "Charlotte's Web" and the final "Winnie The Pooh" story. If you can handle tragedy, this is nonetheless a rich and rewarding story... Recommended! (ReadThatAgain children's book reviews)

if anyone has read Mean Margaret by Tor Seidler and liked it, you might be as dissapointed in Toes as we were. S L O W moving. My kids and I enjoyed Mean Margaret as a nighttime read together, anticipating each new chapter but this one was a big bore. Nothing about this book grabbed our attention. We tried and tried but now it just sits on the shelf unfinished.

you can tell the book had been soaked in water because the pages are all stiff and crinkly. they are hard to turn and some are stuck together, as thats the way it dried. its still readable but im very unsatisfied with my purchase.