Sixteen haiku serve as the text for this heartwarming story of a wandering dog who finds a new home with a kind family. The scruffy, gray dog with beady eyes and an oversized nose appears through the window of the back door on the front cover, and who could resist that engaging face? He’s invited into the house and then fed, bathed and given the name of Mooch. In succeeding spreads, Mooch begins to feel at home but gets into typical trouble when left alone, chewing on socks and getting into the trash. The new owners provide Mooch with his own bed and toys, finally accepting him as part of their family. The author succeeds in packing quite a bit of plot into the haiku, with additional story elements added through the illustrations of a busy household with three children. The illustrations create a real sense of drama as the dog’s fate is considered, and Mooch stands out in every illustration with his appealing facial expressions and poses. A short author’s note defines haiku and offers some additional samples. (Picture book/poetry. 4-6)
Pub Date: June 26, 2007
ISBN: 978-0-689-85823-9
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 15, 2007
As a young rabbit prepares for sleep, the pleasures of the day are recounted in couplets: “Time with others. Time alone./Time to nurture seeds I’ve sown.” In the day, there was also time to play, sing, cuddle, and hug. Each activity is impressively captured in Wallace’s distinct cut-paper artwork; the colors invite readers to linger, and the scenes are immediately recognizable. The positions struck by the rabbits—e.g., two bunnies dancing about in the spray of a sprinkler—are remarkably natural. While the rhymes and imagery are highly accessible, Wallace has added incidentals that expand the age range for the book, such as ladybugs, dragonflies, or a crab in a fish tank, that are fun to discover and identify. The final image of the bunny hunkering down with a teddy bear will bring smiles. (Picture book. 1-5)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-98266-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Houghton Mifflin
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 1, 1999
Bartlett doesn’t allow readers not to like her artwork, with the brio and dash of her thick colors and the instant appeal of her characters’ faces. The same applies to Doherty’s trim little story, which is full of enjoyable word play. Paddiwak, a cat and “a heartthrob (quite a snob), very smart in his neat black suit,” rules his roost until the day, that “terrible day,” when Sally brings home another cat, and what a cat: “A laugh of a cat, a dumpling cat with a black bit here and a white bit there, floppy round the tummy and great big paws.” Paddiwak takes grave offense, hisses, and leaves, huffing that he will never return. The new cat explores timidly, while Paddiwak stews outside. Just when the new cat is feeling really lonely and blue, the dark and the rain suggest to Paddiwak that he end his self-imposed exile. He is sodden and rumpled as he sneaks into a favorite den and finds “something as cuddly as a cushion to lay his head on.” That’s the new cat, now called Cozy, and so is the story, where a cat can act like a fool without being condemned as one, as long as he knows when to come in out of the rain. (Picture book. 3-6)
Pub Date: Oct. 1, 1999
ISBN: 0-531-30180-X
Page Count: 28
Publisher: Orchard
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Oct. 1, 1999
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