HORSE MEETS DOG

An interspecies encounter confuses two four-legged creatures.

Dog meets Horse and extols dogginess. Horse, in return, applauds horsiness. Dog likes to play fetch with a ball, while Horse loves to groom its mane. Neither can grasp that the other is a member of a different species. Horse expresses confusion at Dog’s small stature, and Dog, in turn, cannot understand how Horse can be so tall. They butt heads in their shared state of confusion, sure to increase exponentially when, on the final two pages, Bird flies into the picture. Kalan tells his little tale entirely in speech bubbles, with uppercase type used to express the animals’ raised voices. Miller’s illustrations are executed in pen and ink and “digital hocus-pocus.” They portray critters with sharp angles and exaggerated heads against a green lower background (for grass) and a blue upper background (for sky). Horse is gray and Dog is yellow; both are outlined in black with very big eyes. Some humorous moments grace the story, as when Horse tries to feed “Tiny Baby” Dog with a hay-filled bottle and gifts him with a size-appropriate saddle. However, an ending with mutual understanding and a blossoming friendship is absent.

Animals so familiar and often so beloved to children start and end their conversation in bewilderment, which may lead to the same feeling among listeners.