HAPPY DOG!

A paintbrush is the key that unlocks Jack Cat’s imagination one rainy Saturday in this young artist’s high-energy showcase. Clad in jeans and a loudly striped T-shirt, Jack Cat stands at his easel and creates a bouncy new friend he dubs Happy Dog—and it’s playtime, as the two fashion themselves a castle made of Swiss cheese, then zoom off in a five-pointed “star ship” and a big, red fire engine. Grubb fills each oversized spread with rich, vibrant, vigorously brushed-on color, adding Keith Haring–style action lines around nearly every figure and detail for a decidedly pop-art effect. Previously featured in posters and gallery paintings, Happy Dog is a deep-blue, snaggle-eared hound that bounds about his somewhat more sedate creator until it’s time for both to take a nap. As with most debuts by artists who already have a reputation outside the field of illustration, plot takes a back seat to art, but here the pictures more than compensate, thrumming with enthusiasm and introducing young readers to the most engagingly doggy big dog since Henry’s Mudge. (Picture book. 4-7)