What's in a Word? I Love You, Fred by Mick and Chloe Inkpen

Fred is a different dog these days.

He's been schooled and is now a doggy academy graduate. Fred wasn't the star pupil, but he wasn't the worst in his class either.

He knows all those important words his young master uses:

I "SIT." I "STAY"
I DON'T RUN AWAY.

"WALK" AND "BARK" AND "BED."
BUT WHAT IS..."FRED?"

His people say that word a lot. Fred wants to earn a "Good Boy!" but... he can't figure out how to "FRED!"

Fred puzzles. He watches other dogs in the park, but they never seem to FRED!

And then one day at the park Fred sees another dog just like him looking up at him from the pond. And he has Fred's ball!

Fred jumps into the pond!

PADDLE! STRUGGLE! KICK! SPLUTTER!

Suddenly his boy is shouting FRED!

"OH, FRED! FRED! FRED! FRED!"

And as Fred is pulled out of the water he suddenly gets it. He is Fred.

"I HAVE BEEN FREDDING ALL THE TIME."

Now Fred knows who he is and that he is loved, in Mick and Chloe Inkpen's I Love You, Fred (Aladdin Books, 2019), a funny story of a boy and his goofy but well-meaning pug who are learning to speak the same language--love--illustrated with charm and love by the author's daughter, Chloe Inkpen. Share this one with Inkpen's first book about Fred in his pre-obedience school days, I Will Love You Anyway and his hit stories of a pampered pooch, Naughty Mabel (read review here).