Nara is a well-known Japanese artist who specializes in images of dogs and small girls. Here he tries to combine the two elements into an illustrated tale about a lonely, mountain-sized dog that nobody notices and a girl who climbs up through the clouds to befriend it. The result is an incoherent hash, pairing smudgy images of kitschy figures to a text that starts out with the dog’s narration, suddenly switches to third person, then disappears—followed by four mystifying wordless spreads, presumably of the two at play, that could be viewed in any order. Equally puzzling is the book’s dedication: “To physically challenged children everywhere.” If this is a metaphor on disability, it will escape just about everybody but the artist. This won’t gain him any young fans, and older ones will find better showcases online. (Picture book. Adult)