Critic's Choice: Dogs by Emily Gravett

I LOVE DOGS!

I LOVE BIG DOGS AND SMALL DOGS.

I LOVE HAIRY DOGS AND BALD DOGS.

Noted author/illustrator Emily Gravett celebrates the wonderful variety of dog shapes and dog personalities in her newest, Dogs (Simon & Schuster, 2010).

In clever and playful contrasts, an unseen narrator extolls her fondness for all sorts of canines, tough and soft, stripey and spotted, barky dogs and silent dogs, all shown in the most delightful of sepia and gray line drawings with just a soupcon of occasional touches of perfectly chosen color. Although the text itself is straight-forward enough, humor abounds in the double-paged contrasts: an enormously hairy St. Bernard sheds all over the pages it shares with the nearly hairless crested Chinese; a pampered, pink-bowed, and primped poodle casts a disparaging view upon an unkempt shabby mutt; a trio of long-legged and lean courser hounds cast superior glances back at a shambling Bassett hound; and a "good" shaggy dog fetches the bedroom slippers while the "bad" rascally retriever chews a pair to shreds.

And who is this fancier with such eclectic taste in dogs? Gravett's last double spread reveals this connoisseur of canines to be none other than a cat who reveals her one critical criterion:

BUT THE DOG I LOVE BEST...

LET'S SEE...

IS ANY DOG THAT WON'T CHASE ME!

An additional treat is Gravett's spot-on drawings of a variety of dog breeds--Saluki, Doberman, bull terrier, Chihuahua, to name a few--with their identities revealed for the education of those readers drawn to this portrayals of their characteristics, shown in the front and back endpapers.

Always Room for One More! Teacher's Pets

Dayle Ann Dodd's Teacher's Pets describes an idyllic classroom in which the perky young teacher Miss Fry urges all the kids to bring their pets for show-and-tell day on Monday. Week by week the kids bring in their animals, first a pet rooster named Red, then Vincent the tarantula, next Moe the cricket, and on to a goat named Gladys, a dachshund, a boa constrictor, a cat, mice, ducks, an iguana, a frog, a monkey, a turtle, and even an old kitchen sponge.

Gamely Miss Fry welcomes all the zoological visitors with a smile, but there's a problem. Nobody's family seems to be in any hurry for the pets to return home, and before long Miss Fry is feeding and tending to a classroom menagerie every day. Oh, the classroom is full of happy pet noises, and on Parents' Night, the animals are a hit with the visiting grownups, but on the last day of school, Miss Fry lowers the boom. "Have a nice summer...and don't forget to TAKE HOME YOUR PETS!"

As the dust settles over a post-party classroom, Miss Fry notices one small pet has been left behind--Moe the cricket. Happily, Moe is just what Miss Fry's garden has been needing, and she gladly takes him home to sing her to sleep each summer night.

Teacher's Pets is perfect to inspire students to draw or write about their own pets, for a first-year teacher, for a last-day-of-school story time, or for a special teacher that you remember for his or her amazing patience!