A real tail wagger.
A new dog in town has trouble making friends.
The pooch introduces himself with a message sprayed in urine on a brick wall: “Hello I am Toby.” Unfortunately, other olfactory messages—translated into signage readable by humans in watercolor, pencil, and ink illustrations reminiscent of Shirley Hughes’ work in their luminosity and brushwork—drown out the greeting. Worse yet, a further friendly smellogram on the sidewalk is so garbled by rain, garbage collectors, and the feet of passersby that Toby’s four-footed neighbors mistake him for a mean dog. What’s a lonely mutt to do? Dog lovers will delight in the canine rushes of various Fidos cavorting energetically across the urban scenes and endpapers (human figures remain hazy and peripheral, though seemingly racially diverse) and yelp with pleasure at Toby’s distinctly doggy solution to his dilemma. Confronted in the park by a tense, hostile pack, he approaches slowly and then suddenly drops his front end in classic “DO YOU WANT TO…CHASE ME?” posture. The canines respond with a howling chorus of “YES!” and the ice is instantly broken in a wild, gleeful rumpus. Heder may take a bit of artistic license in depicting over a dozen dogs unleashed in an apparently unfenced urban park setting, but young readers who’ve found themselves in a situation like Toby’s will take comfort in the cathartic close. The messages that the dogs convey in urine are hilariously apt: “Suki’s stick,” “Don’t trust the squirrels,” and “Anyone for a howl?”
A real tail wagger. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Sept. 17, 2024
ISBN: 9781419757518
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Abrams
Review Posted Online: Oct. 25, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2024
A charming tale of an athlete who may not steal any bases but who will certainly steal readers’ hearts.
Ohtani, pitcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers, teams up with Blank and Liem to tell the story of how his dog, Decoy, threw out a ceremonial first pitch.
It’s a big day! Decoy leaps “off the bed. Then back onto the bed. Then off the bed.” The enthusiastic pup heads outside to practice with his lucky baseball but is quickly distracted by squirrels (“we’ll play later!”), airplanes (“flyin’ high!”), and flowers (“smell ya soon!”). Dog and pitcher then head to the ballpark. In the locker room, Decoy high-paws Shohei’s teammates. It’s nearly time! But as Shohei prepares to warm up, Decoy realizes that he’s forgotten something important: his lucky ball. Without it, there will be “no championships, no parades, and no hot dogs!” Back home he goes, returning just in time. With Shohei at the plate, Decoy runs from the mound to his owner, rolling the ball into Shohei’s mitt for a “Striiiiike!” Related from a dog’s point of view, Ohtani and Blank’s energetic text lends the tale a sense of urgency and suspense. Liem’s illustrations capture the excitement of the first day of baseball season and the joys of locker room camaraderie, as well as Shohei and Decoy’s mutual affection—even when the ball is drenched in slobber, Shohei’s love for his pet shines through, and clearly, Decoy is focused when it matters.
A charming tale of an athlete who may not steal any bases but who will certainly steal readers’ hearts. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2026
ISBN: 9780063460775
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Oct. 10, 2025
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2025
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted...
Reinvention is the name of the game for two blobs of clay.
A blue-eyed gray blob and a brown-eyed brown blob sit side by side, unsure as to what’s going to happen next. The gray anticipates an adventure, while the brown appears apprehensive. A pair of hands descends, and soon, amid a flurry of squishing and prodding and poking and sculpting, a handsome gray wolf and a stately brown owl emerge. The hands disappear, leaving the friends to their own devices. The owl is pleased, but the wolf convinces it that the best is yet to come. An ear pulled here and an extra eye placed there, and before you can shake a carving stick, a spurt of frenetic self-exploration—expressed as a tangled black scribble—reveals a succession of smug hybrid beasts. After all, the opportunity to become a “pig-e-phant” doesn’t come around every day. But the sound of approaching footsteps panics the pair of Picassos. How are they going to “fix [them]selves” on time? Soon a hippopotamus and peacock are staring bug-eyed at a returning pair of astonished hands. The creative naiveté of the “clay mates” is perfectly captured by Petty’s feisty, spot-on dialogue: “This was your idea…and it was a BAD one.” Eldridge’s endearing sculpted images are photographed against the stark white background of an artist’s work table to great effect.
The dynamic interaction between the characters invites readers to take risks, push boundaries, and have a little unscripted fun of their own . (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: June 20, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-316-30311-8
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Little, Brown
Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017
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