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.

Still More Doggone Good Tales: Wag-a-Tail by Lois Ehlert

Lois Ehlert's latest collage art picture book is as joyous and bouncy as a bunch of dogs out for a walk. Constructed from cloth and paper cutouts, a few buttons, and a lot of imagination, the various breeds of dogs pictured on a stroll through an urban farmers' market are amazingly recognizable, by shape and by personality, as they strut their newly graduated obedience skills.

Ha-Woo,
How are you?
We are cool,
We never drool,
We're graduates of Bow Wow School!

Not that the canine cruisers are perfect. Behavior skills slip a bit here and there among the many temptations of the city streets. One dog gives in to temptation as he breaks free to chase a cat.

Dog gone?
Moving on.
Big dog broke a rule.
"So sorry. Lost my cool!"

The dogs are finally rewarded for their good behavior by a romp in the city dog park.

We do tricks,
Pick up sticks,
We are very cool.
We chase squirrels
Meet furry girls,
But we never drool.

Ehlert's dogs and dog walkers are rendered in crisp, bright colors against a steady green background and they zip and zag through their cityscape with verve and pizazz. The author's afterword includes both a list of breeds with their characteristics and a description of the materials and techniques used to create the wonderful collages which fill Wag A Tail with all the fun of a walk in the park.