DOGGONE DOGS!

A man with an ultra-thin face and a pointed tuft of red hair is the harried owner of ten exuberant dogs, and “exuberant” is the definitive description of both the pack of pooches and this frenetically funny story. At sunup the ten dogs fly off the bed and out the door to the park, where they interrupt an obedience class and get into mischief, losing their owner along the way. The park’s dogcatcher captures the pack and locks it up, but the dogs manage to escape and find their way back home by nightfall, reuniting with their hapless owner. The succinct, rhyming text bounces along just like the runaways, numerically counting up the dogs and naming them in a fast-paced, catchy rhyme: “One dog, / Two dogs, / Three dogs, / Four, / Doggone dogs run out the door.” Catrow’s signature watercolor-and-pencil illustrations are bouncy and spirited as well, with mischievous looks and grins on the faces of the ten distinctly different dogs. In the crowded arena of dog stories, this one stands out from the pack. (Picture book. 3-6)