The first Mr. Putter & Tabby book I picked up was Mr. Putter & Tabby Pick the Pears. I loved it. The relationships between Mr. Putter, his fine cat Tabby, their outgoing neighbor Ms. Teaberry, and her good dog Zeke are the heart of the series and the the soft, bittersweet tone and pictures grabbed me immediately. Much to my delight, my boys loved it too. So we’ve slowly been adding to our Mr. Putter & Tabby collection. Like any series, we’ve connected with some of the books more than others. But we’ve read most of the following over and over again (sometimes we’ll read the whole book at a go, other times we’ll read a chapter before bed for several nights running). We also have several others in the series on our wishlist for “someday.” Here is our current collection in the order the books were published:
- 1994 Mr. Putter & Tabby Pour the Tea (a great place to begin–the origin story of Mr. Putter and Tabby’s friendship)
- 1994 Mr. Putter & Tabby Walk the Dog (introduces Ms. Teaberry and her chaos-causing dog Zeke–the boys love Zeke)
- 1994 Mr. Putter & Tabby Bake the Cake (a nice Christmas story that we just take out for a short time each year)
- 1995 Mr. Putter & Tabby Pick the Pears (as mentioned above, my personal favorite)
- 1997 Mr. Putter & Tabby Fly the Plane (a particularly bittersweet entry)
- 1997 Mr. Putter & Tabby Row the Boat (great for a hot day)
- 2000 Mr. Putter & Tabby Paint the Porch (the illustrations here are priceless)
- 2001 Mr. Putter & Tabby Feed the Fish (Tabby’s “fish problem” is presented with both sympathy and humor)
- 2003 Mr. Putter & Tabby Stir the Soup (Zeke gets lots of giggles here)
- 2008 Mr. Putter & Tabby Run the Race (the boys are in complete agreement with Mr. Putter’s motivation for running the race–a second-place prize of a model train set)
Author: Cynthia Rylant
Illustrator: Arthur Howard