On Tumbledown Hill

by Tim Wynne-Jones, Dušan Petričić

When an artist and his pet rabbit go to Tumbledown Hill to paint a picture and eat clover, they are interrupted by twenty-six monster-children who disturb them at their tasks

Genres: Picture Books

29 pages, Hardcover

First published March 15, 2008

About the author

Tim Wynne-Jones (born 12 August 1948) is an English–Canadian author of children's literature, including picture books and novels for children and young adults, novels for adults, radio dramas, songs for the CBC/Jim Henson production Fraggle Rock, as well as a children's musical and an opera libretto.

Awards:
Arthur Ellis Award
◊ Best Juvenile (2001): The Boy in the Burning House
Edgar Award
◊ Best Young Adult (2002): The Boy in the Burning House

Reviews

[American Mensa · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a picture book about how someone who is not human can look at us kids. This story is told through the eyes of something that does not understand kids. It is just like how I wondered what cows thought of cars. I really loved the illustrations of the book. It is funny to see how silly kids are to something that is not a kid. The behavior of the kids is described very realistically and literally so I even laughed many times, and I am a kid. The book kept me wondering how it would end. The pictures do a really good job illustrating the story and I found myself spending more time looking at the pictures than reading the words, even though the words in this book are gigantic. My favorite part of the book was when you find out the secret of how the book makes a game with words. I would recommend this book to kids because it is funny, it makes kids think and it made me wonder if this is how my chickens think of me.
Reviewed by Juliette L., 5, San Francisco Regional Mensa

[Lindsey Stronczek · Rating 4 out of 5]

At first I thought the format of this book would drive me nuts. As I read farther into the storyline I realized this is a great book for discussion and response activities. There are countless opportunities for students upon completion of this book. Tumbledown Hill is set up in very interesting format. It is a story in exactly 26 sentences. Every sentence is one word shorter than the sentence before.

[Deborah · Rating 3 out of 5]

A fun book to read out loud but also one that would be a good writing exercise. The story is 26 sentences long--and each sentence is one word shorter than the word before until the last one--only one word long.