The (Dog) Show Must Go On! Amelia Bedelia Unleashed! by Herman Parish

Supper was almost ready. Something, however, was amiss.

"Amelia Bedelia, have you set the table yet?

Remember the napkins!" called her mother.

"I do!" yelled Amelia Bedelia. "They are dark blue, with white flowers!"

"Right," said her mom. "But please remember to put them out. And do you need glasses?"

"No!" said Amelia Bedelia. "Only Dad wears them!"

When Amelia Bedelia's parents finally sit down for dinner, she comes up with a question that stops the conversation cold.

"Can we have a baby?"

But before the speechless parents can compose themselves, a woman rings the doorbell asking for help finding her lost darling dog "Baby," and Amelia Bedelia is off on a series of dog-gone adventures that include finding the lost dog, deciding she wants a dog of her own, helping her friend, Diana with her dog-walking job to discover what kind of dog she wants, trying out skateboarding while she's holding a dog leash, and winding up helping her friend Charlie bathe and groom his poodle Pierre for the dog show. Nobody will be surprised when Amelia Bedelia has to handle Pierre the Poodle in the dog show. Pierre doesn't win, but he is declared the Most Unusual in Show.

It's a typical day in the Bedelia household, with the young Mistress of Malapropisms present and accounted for, in Herman Parish's Amelia Bedelia Unleashed (HarperCollins), the second in his series of early chapter books for rising primary grade readers. With short and fast-moving chapters loaded with plenty of Bedelia-isms, Herman Parish, nephew of Peggy Parish, creator of the original Amelia Bedelia picture book series, has added new books for fans of the Parish family library. Early elementary readers will be whizzing through these brisk narratives filled with Lynne Avril's line drawings to illustrate it all. For more malapropisms, puns, and wordplay, pair this one with the first book in the series, Amelia Bedelia Means Business.

Best In Show! Carl At the Dog Show by Alexandra Day

"WE'RE GOING TO THE DOG SHOW TODAY TO WATCH VALERIE AND CARL'S BROTHER GAMBLE."

Everyone's favorite Rottweiler Carl has a brother in show biz, and it's off to the big dog show downtown for Mom, little Madeleine, and their trusty companion dog Carl.

Once inside the convocation center, it's a mass of dogs and dog people, all busy with their various tasks--psyching up their dogs, grooming their dogs, and for the vendors of canine paraphernalia, plying their wares. Mom tells her two charges that she must help Valerie prepare Gamble for his big moment in the limelight and blithely sends them off into the crowd with instructions to meet her at the show ring in time for Gamble's event.

"DON'T GET INTO ANY TROUBLE!" SHE WARNS.

As we knew they would, Madeleine climbs onto Carl's broad back and Carl carries her off to find fun on the show floor. The two watch all sorts of dogs getting prettied up for their performance in the ring and they try out some doggy bathing equipment for themselves. Carl and Madeleine even take a turn through the tunnel in the dog agility course while the expert border collie looks on a bit scornfully. Among the vendors' stands, Madeleine is entranced by the variety of co-costumes for dogs and owners, trying out a Goldilocks wig on poor Carl while she contemplates a bear mask for herself. As always, the fun arises from the up-close look at the secret adventures of little Madeleine and Carl while the unsuspecting Mom is busy elsewhere

Finally, Carl remembers their orders from Mom, and with an anxious look sets out, Madeleine again on his back, in a cross-country canine derby, leaping over any dogs in his path, until they appear solemnly at ringside just in time for Gamble's big event.

There are plenty of winners at this dog show--Longest Dog, Best Frisbee Catcher, Smallest Dog--but Carl is, of course, a shoo-in for Best Babysitter in anybody's book, and in Alexandra Day's latest book, Carl at the Dog Show (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2012), Carl again earns his blue ribbon. Day also offers hours of fun for youngsters by supplying a three-page appendix of thumbnail illustrations of the breeds portrayed on the pages of this book so that young readers can backtrack and spy them all out among the illustrations after the story is done. Horn Book's reviewer points out what makes perusing the detailed and realistic pictures in these full-scale picture books so much fun: “Each spread offers much to look at in itself and rewards close attention, as when we see a small dog curiously nosing a toy on a sales rack only to be politely given the toy by Carl on the next page.”