Owners of goldendoodles, Maryland residents and families with runners will find this story touching.
In this true story, a goldendoodle named Dozer runs away from home and then runs a half marathon, becoming a celebrated canine mascot and fundraiser for cancer in the process.
Dozer is outside in his own rural yard in Highland, Md., when runners from the Maryland Half Marathon begin running by. The spunky dog joins the group of 2,000 runners, continuing on for almost the entire 13-mile race. His family has no idea he left to join the race, and he is gone for 24 hours before finally limping home. Within a few days, race officials track him down and present Dozer with a marathon medal. An author’s note explains that Dozer was filmed crossing the finish line with the other runners, leading to hundreds of pledges in his name that raised $25,000 for a cancer center in Maryland. The text of the story is rather wordy but also amusing, with emphasis on all the smells that entice Dozer along on his run. Soft-focus illustrations add humor with anthropomorphic expressions on Dozer’s face and realistic views of marathon runners in action. The intriguing nature of Dozer’s celebrity and effectiveness as a fundraiser for the cancer center is conveyed through the author’s note rather than through the story and illustrations, but Dozer is a charmer nonetheless.
Owners of goldendoodles, Maryland residents and families with runners will find this story touching. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: May 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-58536-896-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
Hee haw.
The print version of a knee-slapping cumulative ditty.
In the song, Smith meets a donkey on the road. It is three-legged, and so a “wonky donkey” that, on further examination, has but one eye and so is a “winky wonky donkey” with a taste for country music and therefore a “honky-tonky winky wonky donkey,” and so on to a final characterization as a “spunky hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” A free musical recording (of this version, anyway—the author’s website hints at an adults-only version of the song) is available from the publisher and elsewhere online. Even though the book has no included soundtrack, the sly, high-spirited, eye patch–sporting donkey that grins, winks, farts, and clumps its way through the song on a prosthetic metal hoof in Cowley’s informal watercolors supplies comical visual flourishes for the silly wordplay. Look for ready guffaws from young audiences, whether read or sung, though those attuned to disability stereotypes may find themselves wincing instead or as well.
Hee haw. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-26124-1
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2018
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A first-rate sharkfest, unusually nutritious for all its brevity.
Buzz and his buzzy buddy open a spinoff series of nonfiction early readers with an aquarium visit.
Buzz: “Like other fish, sharks breathe through gills.” Fly Guy: “GILLZZ.” Thus do the two pop-eyed cartoon tour guides squire readers past a plethora of cramped but carefully labeled color photos depicting dozens of kinds of sharks in watery settings, along with close-ups of skin, teeth and other anatomical features. In the bite-sized blocks of narrative text, challenging vocabulary words like “carnivores” and “luminescence” come with pronunciation guides and lucid in-context definitions. Despite all the flashes of dentifrice and references to prey and smelling blood in the water, there is no actual gore or chowing down on display. Sharks are “so cool!” proclaims Buzz at last, striding out of the gift shop. “I can’t wait for our next field trip!” (That will be Fly Guy Presents: Space, scheduled for September 2013.)
A first-rate sharkfest, unusually nutritious for all its brevity. (Informational easy reader. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2013
ISBN: 978-0-545-50771-4
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Feb. 17, 2013
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2013
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