A charming tale of friendship between dogs and the love of owners who understand their pets.
Sashi, the formerly shy sheltie, returns to welcome a new misbehaving brother into her family in Greiner’s (Sashi, The Scared Little Sheltie, 2015) second picture book.
Sashi knows what it’s like to be unwanted. She was a rescue dog when Anna and her mother adopted her. After a few years, Sashi’s humans decide to foster rescue dogs until they find permanent homes. Well-trained and confident in her place among her humans, Sashi makes sure the foster dogs know that she’s the princess of the house. Some of the foster dogs teach her fun tricks, like climbing snowdrifts. Others—like the one who chases a “laser light toy”—just seem strange. But none challenges her ability to rule her home as much as Buddy. An oversized and rambunctious sheltie, Buddy had to leave his original home due to his bad behavior. At first, he annoys Sashi with his antics, and she chases him in punishment. Soon she realizes that the chasing is just part of the game, and she forgets about being a princess—she just has fun. When Buddy misbehaves when meeting with prospective adopters, Anna and her mom realize that Buddy just doesn’t want to leave Sashi. Spicer’s brightly colored illustrations give each sheltie a unique personality, and the pages where Buddy is winning over Sashi show Sashi’s development from reluctance to play with this new dog to joy at finding a playmate. Each page is dense with text, making the book better for independent grade school readers or very patient lap readers. The vocabulary may include words and phrases unfamiliar to young readers (“adoption,” “rowdy,” “behaviors,” “in spite of herself”), but the meanings are clear in context. Greiner’s passion for shelties and rescue dogs comes through clearly in the story, and she shows the types of roles that rescue shelties can take on after adoption, whether as therapy dogs, helpers in a store, or simply loving pets. An endnote describes the breed, and the author’s bio promises that proceeds from the book’s sale will go toward Sheltie Rescue.
A charming tale of friendship between dogs and the love of owners who understand their pets.Pub Date: N/A
ISBN: N/A
Page Count: -
Publisher: Brown Books Kids
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2015
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2015
Review Program: Kirkus Indie
BOOK REVIEW
A joyful celebration.
Families in a variety of configurations play, dance, and celebrate together.
The rhymed verse, based on a song from the Noodle Loaf children’s podcast, declares that “Families belong / Together like a puzzle / Different-sized people / One big snuggle.” The accompanying image shows an interracial couple of caregivers (one with brown skin and one pale) cuddling with a pajama-clad toddler with light brown skin and surrounded by two cats and a dog. Subsequent pages show a wide array of families with members of many different racial presentations engaging in bike and bus rides, indoor dance parties, and more. In some, readers see only one caregiver: a father or a grandparent, perhaps. One same-sex couple with two children in tow are expecting another child. Smart’s illustrations are playful and expressive, curating the most joyful moments of family life. The verse, punctuated by the word together, frequently set in oversized font, is gently inclusive at its best but may trip up readers with its irregular rhythms. The song that inspired the book can be found on the Noodle Loaf website.
A joyful celebration. (Board book. 1-3)Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-593-22276-8
Page Count: 24
Publisher: Rise x Penguin Workshop
Review Posted Online: Nov. 26, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2020
Continuing to find inspiration in the work of Virginia Lee Burton, Munro Leaf and other illustrators of the past, Long (The Little Engine That Could, 2005) offers an aw-shucks friendship tale that features a small but hardworking tractor (“putt puff puttedy chuff”) with a Little Toot–style face and a big-eared young descendant of Ferdinand the bull who gets stuck in deep, gooey mud. After the big new yellow tractor, crowds of overalls-clad locals and a red fire engine all fail to pull her out, the little tractor (who had been left behind the barn to rust after the arrival of the new tractor) comes putt-puff-puttedy-chuff-ing down the hill to entice his terrified bovine buddy successfully back to dry ground. Short on internal logic but long on creamy scenes of calf and tractor either gamboling energetically with a gaggle of McCloskey-like geese through neutral-toned fields or resting peacefully in the shade of a gnarled tree (apple, not cork), the episode will certainly draw nostalgic adults. Considering the author’s track record and influences, it may find a welcome from younger audiences too. (Picture book. 5-8)
Pub Date: Sept. 1, 2009
ISBN: 978-0-399-25248-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Philomel
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 15, 2009
SEEN & HEARD
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