The Nose Knows! The Detective Dog by Julia Donaldson

Known as Detective Dog, Nell uses her fantastic sense of smell to sniff out the truth.

Who left the poo on the new gravel path?
How did the spider get into the bath?

With a wag of her tail
Nell the detective was hot on the trail.

Nell's sleuthing skills are kept busy by her person, Peter (who could have been neater), who needs Nell to find all the things he misplaces--one shoe in the tool shed, the book left under cover in bed, even the ball that bounced into the toilet. But on Mondays, Nell leaves her detecting duties behind and goes to school with Peter. There, she is the reading dog, who sits with the youngsters just learning to read.

Books about princes who turned into frogs,
Books about dragons--and books about dogs.

Nell loves the unforgettable smell of books, but on one Monday morning, that sweet scent is missing. In fact, so are all the books from the classroom shelves! It's a mystery, but Nell sniffs out a clue. There's a cap left behind by the robber, and Nell's nose knows what to do. Following his scent, she leads the teacher and class through the winding streets of the village and the fields nearby. Ignoring the bodacious odor of rabbits in the meadow, Nell tracks down the culprit.

Sniff, sniff, sniff! Peter cried "Look!"

For there sat a man with his nose in a book.

Surrounded by sacks of the children's looted volumes, the culprit is quite contrite. He claims he only meant to borrow them till tomorrow. At the word "borrow," Nell perks up her ears. She knows just the place for a rehabilitated book crook--the public library, where he can borrow any book.

It's another case closed for Nell in Julia Donaldson's winsome The Detective Dog (Henry Holt and Company, 2018 (First Am. ed.) Julia Donaldson's way with rhyme, rhythm, and meter gives her narration a bounce and verve that makes this one irresistible for youngsters, and artist Sara Ogilvie's splendidly flowing illustrations of her lovely canine crime hound at work have comic touches, as when Peter's kind classmates retrieve the ball and scarf Peter has misplaced along the way. A joyous book in praise of both dogs and reading, and what could be better?

Author Julia Donaldson is also the author of many beloved rhyming tales, such as The Gruffalo and the Halloween classic, Room on the Broom, (See two different reviews of two editions of this one here).