I See, You Saw: A Playful I Spy Book About Two Cats and Wordplay for Kids (Ages 4-8)

by Nurit Karlin

A can, a fly, a seesaw, a bee.Two jaunty cats see it all as they spend the day playing their own version of I Spy.Soon enough, their play grows into boisterous fun where wordplay is the name of the game, and the ingenious concept behind this My First I Can Read Book.

"Clever and bright." —Kirkus Reviews

Genres: Cats, Childrens, Animals, Picture Books

32 pages, Paperback

First published May 1, 1997

Reviews

[Julian]

The story follows a couple of cat thugs, as they walk around, armed with a saw, kicking cans and destroying public property. Will someone stop them?

Good book to talk about how certain words sound the same but mean different things. We are not at that stage yet, though. Not the best choice for me.

One of the challenges we're having with the start to read books is that the stories are understandably very basic and they bore my daughter, but of course that she cannot start reading with the Hilda series. I need to find a balance.

[Denise Kettering]

This early reader book is good for introducing how different words might look the same, but sound different. The story follows two cats throughout the day and has simple illustrations that combine with the words.

[Dylan Teut]

I will be using this in music class- one group of students is the "see' group, the other is the "saw" group. Both groups have different instruments and will use cues of "see" and saw" to play their instruments with this fun and imaginative story.

[Melissa Namba]

a good book showing the complexity of the English language and how words can have multiple meanings.

[Jeremy]

Hav said it was good, but too short.

[Ellie Gibbs]

Great book for beginner readers. Funny play on the different meaning of words.

[Rayn]

Free

[Jill Roy]

I see you saw

[Jenny]

This is a GREAT early reader. I'm not giving it 5 stars as a literary work, but as a motivator for early readers. Until you come to the last few pages it is full of easy-to-read beginning Kindergarten words. My daughter is a bit reluctant usually but got a kick out of the double meaning of the words that were spelled the same and liked that she got to use the easy words so many times. It was great to see her recognizing words she had just read and being willing to try more words than usual because they kept using the same words. At the same time it was silly so she wanted to keep going. Ex.: "I see the fly fly."

[Rochelle Sondae]

My First I Can Read Series.
This one is a bit of a tongue twister and was at times hard for me to understand. Mainly because I was trying to read it as one continuous story instead of a series of moments that took place over the course of a day. I got hung up on wondering why there was a "saw" just randomly lying around and how the cats would know what it was and how to use it.

[Gabriel Dubransky]

It's a fun book, but I don't really know what to say about it. And I like the title of it. And there's good pictures in it. And, since there's a lot of fun pictures that's why I like it to be three stars.

[Little Miss and the Legomeister]

Interesting book. Little Miss can read it fairly well, but the puns went completely over her head. And, it didn't have a plot or any real characterization, so puns were really all it had going for it.

Oh, well.

[TJE]

True first reader with a little bit of trickiness because of word play (homographs & homophones) and repetition "...I saw you saw the seesaw". Lots of repetition of the same words-great to use if working on "see"

[Susan]

Very accessible sight words but clever use of homophones. Fish, See, Sea, Saw and seesaw. Clever.