Macomber and Carney team up for their second entry in the Blossom Street Kids series, this time focusing on an unwanted move to a new neighborhood for a girl named Ellen and her Yorkshire terrier named Baxter.
Ellen is reluctant to leave her familiar house, her friends and the local shop owners she has befriended, including the yarn shop where she learned to knit. Once settled in their new house, her woes increase when Baxter the Yorkie escapes from the back yard while wearing the bright green sweater that Ellen knit for him. Ellen and her mother visit the shops in their new neighborhood, repeating over and over to each owner in turn, “Have you seen a yippy, yappy Yorkie in a green doggy sweater?” They find Baxter in the flower shop, where he has found a Yorkie friend for himself and her owner, a little girl who befriends Ellen. The story is completely predictable and nearly devoid of any suspense or humor, and even the two Yorkies don’t offer much spunk to spice things up. Soft-focus watercolor illustrations convey Ellen’s sad feelings, but there is little motion or excitement, just pretty rooms and shops and a tiny dog that fades into the backgrounds rather than driving the action.
This yippy, yappy Yorkie is just another tired puppy in search of a plot. (Picture book. 4-7)
