Puppy Love: Smooch Your Pooch by Teddy Slater

SMOOCH YOUR POOCH TO SHOW YOU CARE.

GIVE HIM A HUG ANYTIME, ANYWHERE.

It's easy to please your pooch in Teddy Slater's beguiling little rhyming tribute to puppy love, his new Smooch Your Pooch (Scholastic, 2010). Artist Arthur Howard, properly appreciated for his delightful dogs in such noted books as Mr. Putter & Tabby Write the Book, Cosmo Zooms, and Bubba and Beau, Best Friends, offers up his usual illustrious illustrations of a variety of kids and their pooches, as Slater describes in bouncing verse all the many ways to woo your dog.

TOSS HIM A BONE. FEED HIM SOME KIBBLE.
OR BETTER YET PIZZA. GIVE HIM A NIBBLE.

This book works well as readaloud storytime treat for dog lovers. Pair it with Emily Gravett's equally funny Dogs reviewed here), Robert Neubecker's I Got Two Dogs: (Book and CD), or Karen Beaumont's Doggone Dogs for a comic canine romp.