SALLY DOG LITTLE

The Littles are a staid lot, formal to a fault. When they deign to let a dog into their house, there will be rules. Papa wants the dog, Sally Dog Little (“They never call her Sally for short. Formal families are not fond of ‘for short’ ”), to bark only at burglars; Mama wants her to attend her thrice-daily walks; little Twinkle Little wants her to sleep on her bed at night. Sally abides, until one day a pair of ghost pirates breezes into the house. Sally lets loose a howl. The Littles come running, but can’t see the ghosts. They admonish Sally: “If this happens again, you will have to go.” Sally realizes the ghosts must leave—if they stay she may well give an inadvertent bark—so she queries them as to their intentions. The pirates, Swiggity Jim and his dog Needles, inform Sally they are on their way to the place that ghosts go, but they need a piece of treasure to get there. That treasure, they say, might well be buried under the oak tree out back. That night they dig up a great treasure chest—“Har, har,” says Swiggity—but all Swiggity and Needles want is the map contained therein, leaving the treasure to Sally, telling her to help herself and then bury what remains for someone else to find. Sally grabs what most fetches her fancy—a big bone, obviously once the pearl in Needles’s eye—and buries the rest. The Littles are no wiser, nor, it seems, will they ever be to life’s strange pleasures. A well-told tale that tweaks the Littles enough you’d think some of their stuffing might fall out, and illustrated with the bright edginess of a Lane Smith, exaggerated to a fare-thee-well. (Picture book. 4-7)