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Pete the Cat: I Can Read!

Pete the Cat and the Tip-Top Tree House

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New York Times best-selling author and artist James Dean takes readers along for a fun, groovy adventure with Pete the Cat!

In Pete the Cat and the Tip-Top Tree House, Pete invites all of his friends over to spend time in his tree house. When they climb up, they realize the tree house is not big enough to fit everyone! They all work together to build the coolest tree house ever.

Beginning readers will love the adventures of Pete and his friends in this My First I Can Read story, complete with original illustrations from the creator of Pete the Cat, James Dean. My First I Can Read books are perfect for shared listening with a child.

Audible Audio

First published January 1, 2017

231 people are currently reading
276 people want to read

About the author

James Dean

232 books253 followers
Librarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name.

James Dean is the original creator and illustrator of Pete the Cat. He is a self-taught artist originally from Fort Payne, Alabama. His passion for drawing became apparent at a young age, and as a child, you could find James drawing his favorite characters like Snoopy and Yogi Bear.

James earned his degree in electrical engineering from Auburn University and went on to work for Georgia Power for a number of years. Eventually, he was called to pursue his art full- time and began selling his work at art festivals around the Southeast. It was during this time that he began creating paintings and drawing of his cat, Pete.The little blue cat showed up as a character in James’s artwork around 1999 and has been a permanent fixture ever since.

James Dean’s art has been sold in more than ninety galleries and shops across the United States. He has devoted his paintings to Pete the Cat for fifteen years and turned his natural love for cats into his life’s work. James published his first book, The Misadventures of Pete the Cat, a history of his artwork, in 2006, and he illustrated his first self-published children’s book, Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes, in 2008. There are now almost 100 published Pete the Cat titles with more coming out all the time. James is humbled every day by the success that this groovy blue cat has brought him. He says positively affecting children’s lives is his number one priority, and he is grateful to have such an amazing audience to work for.

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5 stars
412 (48%)
4 stars
208 (24%)
3 stars
186 (21%)
2 stars
31 (3%)
1 star
9 (1%)
Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews
Profile Image for Jasmine from How Useful It Is.
1,642 reviews381 followers
September 22, 2021
Read for my toddler’s nap time. Pete built a tree house and invited his friends over to play. They wanted bigger and more activities. But each activity only have space for one person like bowling and movies. They wanted to play together not apart.

Read from kindle unlimited.
Profile Image for Michael.
1,292 reviews144 followers
June 10, 2021
If you notice a lot of five-star reads in the children's book category, this is only because Shortcake loves reading as many of the selections on Kindle Unlimited as we can and she's very generous with her ratings. In fact, she questioned me for hours after I gave a book three stars.

I tend to go in and edit the ratings later when she's not looking.

We both love the Pete the Cat series -- and this one may be one of the best we've read together, so far. Pete wants to invite all his friends over to hang out in his new treehouse. In order to entice them over, he adds on a wave-pool, a bowling alley, and several other large room items to make his friends happy. The sheer absurdity of Pete adding all these rooms and things to the treehouse just amused me no end.

As Pete would say, "Groovy."
Profile Image for Meg McGregor.
4,080 reviews81 followers
March 27, 2019
Pete, and his friends, build a spectacular tree house; it is a real work of art!

It is also completely unrealistic. A tree that small could never support all those rooms!

But.....

I told the girls to just go with it!

Anytime Pete and his friends, want to build me a tree house, they are welcome to come on by!
Profile Image for Heather.
1,120 reviews65 followers
April 27, 2022
After reading Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes, I picked up a pack of Pete the Cat readers at Costco for Lily. They are all cute, but none of them are quite as good as the first one.

Pete realizes that his tree house is too small to fit all of his friends, so they collaborate to plan and build an AMAZING addition with a skate park, climbing wall, ice rink, etc. Once they are all spread out, though, they quickly realize that they would rather be together and they go play on the playground. This is a fun one--seems like something a kid would come up with, and it has a cool resolution that the most epic entertainment can only go so far if you're not together with your friends.
30 reviews
October 19, 2018
Summary
Pete has all his friends over to his treehouse. They soon realize that they need more room. Pete and all his friends get to building cool rooms (like a bowling ally and a skate park). However, now the tree house is TOO big now.

Evaluation
This book tells a story of friends working together. They soon realize that they just wanted to spend time with each other. I think it has a message of "its what you're doing, its who you're with."

Teaching Point
Since this an "I can read" book, I would use it as a supplemental text. Most students love all things Pete! Could be a great book to help grab a students attention and get them interested.
Profile Image for Anna.
2,421 reviews15 followers
January 1, 2020
I love treehouses and I love the treehouse Pete built! And all the add-ons his friends made too!

The book is a very short book as it is a level 1 reading book for beginner readers. A great book to share and start off when someone is learning to read. It has short sentences and the book flows well.

SPOILERS AHEAD:

It's a very intrigue treehouse, but soon everyone is in their own area and everyone is alone. So they come together in the jungle gym to hang out together and Pete is happy that the treehouse brought them all together. Illustrations are your typical Pete the Cat illustrations (very colorful). I also enjoyed seeing the other cat, Callie! She's so cute!
Profile Image for Holly.
18 reviews
November 15, 2018
Everyone loves Pete the Cat! In this beginning reader, students can read about the fun antics of Pete on their own. It uses simple language and fun pictures to engage primary-grade students. In this book, Pete builds a tree house and invites all his friends over. But the tree house is too small! What will he do? Can they work together to make the tree house bigger, and decide what to do together? I love this book because it teaches teamwork and gives students a fun option for beginning reading!
Profile Image for Asho.
1,846 reviews12 followers
November 20, 2018
I picked this out for S because I always like to get him a few library books that he can read out loud to me. I still don't really get the appeal of Pete the Cat, but S likes him well enough. S read this book almost completely independently but needed me to help him fully grasp the concept (that the tree house had gotten so big and elaborate that the friends were all spread out in the different rooms and no longer hanging out together as planned).
Profile Image for Angie.
2,849 reviews15 followers
May 3, 2019
My Review: Even though Munchkin is getting a little old for these books, we still love a good Pete the Cat book! This was a fun one to read with lots of imagination and friendships. It was easy to read and great for young readers, the text is bold, with lots of sight words and repetition. I like how each of the friends got to add something they enjoy in the tree house but I love the way it ends!
246 reviews1 follower
September 25, 2024
My oldest granddaughter read this to me for her homework. I was amazed at how well she read. She carefully sounds out the word if she doesn’t know and gets it pretty quick. I was just out a few months ago and she couldn’t read like this. I’m so proud of her.

The book was very creative with building all these fun additions to the tree house.

Her mom said per her homework, she had to read it to me again. This time it is only arcade she had trouble with.
445 reviews7 followers
July 28, 2017
Because she loves it because Pete and his friends make a tower and then the tree house is small but then they make it bigger. 😔😠😡😯😯💣🚬💎💎🚬💴🔮💎💣💎🛡🍲🍧🍡🌯🍣🌯🍙🌮🌭🍧🍛🍛🍛🌯🍲🍥🍲🍧 per hope. Good story and good message that there may be 1,000 things distracting you but what is it you are after? Time with friends? You don't need 1,000 things then.
Profile Image for Sunni.
51 reviews
August 23, 2017
This is a great book to show children teamwork. Pete builds a treehouse and shares it with his friends. They soon realize that it is to small for all of them, so they start adding on to it. It also shows that spending time with friends and helping each other out is more important than material things.
Profile Image for Darinda.
9,011 reviews157 followers
October 18, 2017
Pete builds a tree house. At first, the tree house is not big enough for all the friends. They all get to work to build a huge tree house, but the new tree house ends up being a bit too big.

A "My First" reader. Silly and colorful. A good message about teamwork and that friends are more important than material things.

Profile Image for Becky B.
9,110 reviews175 followers
May 17, 2018
Pete the Cat builds a tree house, invites his friends over and then they decide it needs some improvements. They all pitch in and build one groovy tree house.

Pete the Cat books always have a little unexpected twist in the story. This was no different. Pete and friends turn out to have some amazing building skills and kids' imaginations will go wild with their design. A very fun emergent reader.
Profile Image for Jennifer Bast.
45 reviews5 followers
September 26, 2019
We've gotten a decent amount of mileage out of this book during its three weeks on the preschool reading shelf. The four and five-year-olds gravitate towards it more than the three-year-olds. We have had fun examining the pictures, taking turns answering which part of the epic treehouse we would most like to visit.
Profile Image for Taylor Phillips.
30 reviews
April 29, 2020
For an easy read book I really like it. In comparison to other easy readers, this one does not repeat itself constantly, but offers new simple sentences that enhance problem solving and using teammates to help you when you need it. I would highly suggest Pete the Cat to families with early readers, but this one specifically.
150 reviews
June 23, 2020
DescriptionNew York Times bestselling author and artist James Dean takes readers along for a fun, groovy adventure with Pete the Cat!In Pete the Cat and the Tip-Top Tree House, Pete invites all of his friends over to spend time in his tree house. When they climb up, they realize the tree house is not big enough to fit everyone!
Profile Image for Lynn  Davidson.
8,000 reviews34 followers
May 15, 2025
Pete the Cat built himself a treehouse, and then invited his friends over to see it. When they all crowded into it, it was decided that the treehouse needed to be bigger. What they ended up with was so big they weren’t even playing together in it. In order to play together, the treehouse wasn’t even needed. Funny story.
273 reviews
May 24, 2025
I enjoyed the absurdity of this one. In order to entice all his friends to come to his tree house, Pete builds additions for all their favorite things: an ice rink, a wave pool. a climbing wall, theater... somehow this all stays up in the tree, structurally sound. The only problem is that they're now playing alone, when the point was to spend time together.
Profile Image for AMY.
2,756 reviews
September 17, 2017
Cute story about Pete's new treehouse and how he tries to accommodate all of his friends' wishes for having fun up there. Great illustrations and I would definitely buy for my school. Highly recommended for Gr. K-2.
Profile Image for Kathy (Kindle-aholic).
1,088 reviews98 followers
June 10, 2018
It's usually hit or miss for me with the Pete the Cat first readers. This was one of the better ones. Still doesn't have the same cadence as the picture books, but it was still a good one for the getting-more-independent-every-day reader.
Profile Image for Kristina.
1,149 reviews1 follower
February 11, 2025
I thought that this was a cute book. My students enjoyed seeing all the ideas come to light. This is a good book for beginner readers and easy for them to follow along with. This is also an AR book for anyone who might want to know.
Profile Image for Cheryl.
12.5k reviews477 followers
August 6, 2025
Um, the punchline is funny, but the setup is ridiculous. The friends could all be together at the bowling alley at least, as it has twenty lanes. I don't think I like Pete the Cat.

Read for 'tree houses, forts, and playhouses' theme in Children's Books.
Profile Image for Trish.
3,686 reviews3 followers
May 9, 2017
This book was about building a tree house and spending time with your friends.
Profile Image for Lisa.
400 reviews
June 2, 2017
This was a very cute book. It teaches that childrens' friends are more important than material things.
Profile Image for Nikki.
323 reviews30 followers
September 5, 2017
Read this to my 4 year old for bedtime...not my favorite Pete the Cat book...it was just okay for me.
Profile Image for Vicki.
4,903 reviews32 followers
September 6, 2017
This tree house gets out of control! A fun original story with a most favorite book character.
Profile Image for Danielle.
613 reviews27 followers
October 13, 2017
It was okay. It didn't really catch my attention they way the button book or the white shoes book does.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 62 reviews

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