Caped Christmas Crusaders: A Chick 'N' Pug Christmas by Jennifer Sattler

"SANTA CLAUS BRINGS PRESENTS AND SPREADS JOY TO EVERYONE ON CHRISTMAS!" PUG TELLS CHICK.

"HOW DOES HE DELIVER EVERYTHING IN ONE NIGHT?"

"HE FLIES THROUGH THE SKY!" SAYS PUG.

"SO HE'S A SUPER HERO!" SHOUTS CHICK. "DOES HE NEED A SIDEKICK?"

Fans of Chick 'n' Pug know that Chick has quite a thing for caped crusaders, but in this dynamic duo, Pug, for whom eating is second only to napping, is definitely deficient in the dynamics department. But Chick has enough pizzazz for them both, and she zooms into action to spread cheer with Pug as her own Super Santa.

"OOH! OOH! I WANT TO BE AN ELF!" SHE CRIES.

But not everybody is in the market for cheer! Duck ducks the big rubber ball Chick rolls toward him. The Dude, their old shaggy dog friend, just slobbers all over it. Neither of them seems especially over-joyed. Then Chick spots their old nemesis, Mr. Snuggle the cat, whose owner has decked him out as a "wittle weindeer." Mr. Snuggle is manifestly not in any mood for joy and cheer.

Between his itchy Santa suit and the lack of good cheer so far, Pug is about ready for a long winter's nap, when Chick spots a squirrel seriously schlepping an acorn toward a hollow in a tree.

"WE'D BE NUTS NOT TO HELP!" CHICK EXCLAIMS!

Chick rounds up what like an an acre of acorns and piles them up right in front of the hole in the tree where squirrel lives. Stuck outside, Squirrel has a tizzy tantrum right there on the snow.

"NO NEED TO THANK US!" CHICK WAVES CHEERILY.

Squirrel doesn't return the gesture, and Super Santa Pug 'n' Sidekick Chick seem strangely to have cleared the landscape of customers for their particular version of Christmas cheer.

"WHAT WOULD SANTA DO NOW?" WONDERS CHICK.

But Pug manages to stay awake long enough to supply his best friend with some seasonal joy, in Jennifer Sattler's latest little holiday story of her dynamic duo, in A Chick 'n' Pug Christmas (Bloomsbury Books, 2014). Pug and Chick are the perfect contrast, the classic odd couple, and Sattler's crisp and seriously silly cartoon illustrations draw of their humor from the contrasting body language of the two unlikely best buddies.

Sattler's other top-selling stories of her non-traditional twosome are Chick 'n' Pug and Chick 'n' Pug Meet the Dude. (Read my pugnacious reviews here.)

On the Tail of a Shaggy Dog Tale: Chick 'n' Pug Meet the Dude by Jennifer Sattler

CHICK 'N' PUG WERE AN UNSTOPPABLE TEAM. THEY SPENT MOST OF THEIR TIME LOOKING FOR EXCITING ADVENTURES AND SAVING ORDINARY CITIZENS.

At least, that's the way Chick tells it. Chick has a thing for hyperbole, and to her this somnolent  pooch is Wonder Pug, definitely a super-hero ready to spring into action to the right wrongs of the world. But Pug is no action figure. In fact, his main action appears to be finding times and places for naps, with great success.

But when a ginormous shaggy white dog makes off with their favorite toy, Squeaky Hamburger, Chick thinks it's time for some caped crusading.

"JUST LOOK AT THOSE CLAWS! AND THOSE SHARP FANGS! THE EVIL LOOK IN HIS EYES!" SAID CHICK.

"WHO IS THIS MONSTER?"

Underwhelmed, Pug opens one droopy eyelid just as the beast makes off with the toy, page right.

"THE DUDE," HE SAYS DROWSILY.

"DON'T WORRY, WONDER PUG!" CHICK BOASTS. "I WILL NOT LET THE VILLAIN ESCAPE."

Pug, on the other hand, dozes off again, only rousing himself when a nice woman offers him a treat.

"DOES MY PUGGY WUGGY WANNA NUMMY BONE?"

Chick is on her own sleuthing out the theft of Squeaky Hamburger in this one, but now Wonder Pug has a trick or two under his blankie to soothe the savage beast, in Jennifer Sattler's sequel to her 2010 hit, Chick 'n' Pug, (see review here), Chick 'n' Pug Meet the Dude (Bloomsbury, 2013). Chick, a sort of hyper-frenetic Tweetie Bird, is the real mover and shaker here;  nobody draws comic pugs like Jennifer Sattler, with her heavy-lidded pooch playing the perfect straight man to the over-caffeinated Chick. While silliness is the main order of the day, Sattler's simple premise--that good friends are sometime wildly dissimilar--comes through as loud and clear as Chick's histrionics.

Somnolent Superhero: Chick 'n' Pug by Jennifer Sattler

CHICK HAD READ THE ADVENTURES OF WONDERPUG!

127 TIMES.

EVERY PAGE WAS FILLED WITH EXCITEMENT.

BUT THERE WAS NO EXCITEMENT IN THE CHICKEN COOP.

All the setting hens do is snooze on their nests. But inside Chick's tiny chest beats the heart of an adventurer, so without a backward look she sets forth into the wide world to find the excitement her little heart craves.

And what does Chick see but the very object of her hero worship. Can it be? It is a pug, wearing a striped dog sweater and a kerchief collar. It must be Wonderpug!

"WOW!" EVEN ASLEEP HE LOOKS WONDERFUL!"

But this pug is no wonder, unless you wonder how he can stay asleep through Chick's rapturous adulation. Even under her prodding he merely rolls over, scratches an itch, and falls back asleep. But nothing shakes Chick's belief that she has found her idol--one who can do no wrong. Even his persistent somnolence is proof of his superhero qualities:

HE MUST BE SAVING UP HIS ENERGY FOR HIS NEXT ADVENTURE!

And then there are footsteps coming nearer. An intruder? Will Wonderpug arise and vanquish the threat?

"OH, MR. SNUGGLES. YOU PLAY WITH PUGGLY WUGGLY!"

A woman drops a fat, sleepy cat, wearing a matching kerchief, down next to Wonderpug with a plop. Still the sleeping superhero doesn't stir. What's a fan to do in the face of such a fearful menace? Chick bravely steps into the breach with a loud "WOOF!"

Mr. Snuggles skedaddles presto.

"HMMF! MR. SNUGGLES DIDN'T COUNT ON WONDERPUG HAVING A SIDEKICK, DID HE?"

Jennifer Sattler's new Chick 'n' Pug (Bloomsbury, 2010) depends on her slyly humorous illustrations to put over her tale of a chick who pours all the power of her projected dreams upon the resolutely sleeping pug before her. Excitement is in the eye of the beholder here!

Boo-Boo Birdie: Uh-Oh, Dodo! by Jennifer Satler

DODO LOVES TO WALK WITH HIS MAMA.

TODAY THEY ARE GOING SOMEPLACE SPECIAL.

Little Dodo has enthusiasm going for him.  Now if he can just get his long, double-jointed legs going, too.

Dodo thinks even his toes are talented, but absorbed in the study of his twinkling toes, he walks right into his mother's tail feathers and tips back onto his own bottom.

UH-OH, DODO!

The trek does not take a turn for the better, as Dodo's slightly-off-key singing draws, not cheers, but a shushing from the nesting mother birds in the trees. Spotting some smooth oval rocks near the trail, he tries to grab them for his rock collection, but the "rocks" (napping turtles) fail to co-operate with the collection plan. Uh-oh!

Dodo blunders into another unfortunate encounter, as a potential new friend turns out to be a potent skunk! BIG Boo-Boo! Dodo runs for comfort toward the nearest set of avian legs. But they're not Mama's legs. They belong to a less-than-thrilled ostrich! Luckily, Mama is nearby and all's soon righted again, as Mama takes a firm lead to get this hike back on track. There's the promised something special ahead, and Mama is determined that Dodo is going to get there to see it before sunset!

Jennifer Sattler's Uh-Oh, Dodo! (Boyd's Mill, 2013) has a lovable bumbling baby dodo, a well-motivated mama, and a surprise comic character, a tag-along green grasshopper, who threatens to steal the show on every page, finally hitching a ride on Dodo's head and holding his eyes shut to protect him from further distractions along the trail. At last the three reach the top of the hill to see a breathtaking view of the ocean beyond. Sattler's text is minimalist, but her illustrations are bright, filling the pages with what has to be the most adorable dodo in childrens' literature, and her recurring refrain, UH-OH, DODO! will have kids responding merrily all the way. And like all such tales should, it ends in a sort of bedtime for baby, as the tuckered out tot hitches a ride on Mama's soft feathery back for the return trip, grasshopper and all.  "A charming, cozy read-aloud with lots of visual interest," says Kirkus Reviews.

Jennifer Sattler's books include Sylvie, Chick 'n' Pug, Chick 'n' Pug Meet the Dude, and Pig Kahuna.

"Am NOT!" "Are TOO!" Pig and Pug by Lynn Berry

PUG IN A PURSE.

PIG IN A POCKET.

"ARE YOU A PUG?" PUG SAYS TO PIG.

"NO, PIG!" SAYS PIG TO PUG.

The two tea-cup-sized pets don't quite know what to make of each other. There are certain similarities, but still....

'Tis a puzzlement.

Pug suggests that Pig is a pudgy pug. Pig insists not. Pretty soon the meeting turns into a petty dust-up. Pug gets pugilistic; Pig gets piggish.

Name-calling ensues. Pug calls Pig a copycat!

"AM NOT!"

"ARE TOO!"

PIG AND PUG POUNCE!

The little dust-up gets dirty as Pug takes a tumble into a mud puddle. Pug is a muddy mess. It's just too funny for the petite pets to stay petulant. They start to titter and giggle and finally chuckle at each other. It's time to recalculate their relationship.

Pals?

PALS!

It's a tempest in a tea cup for those popular pygmy pets in Lynn Berry's Pig and Pug (Simon and Schuster, 2015). With simple line drawings by illustrator Gemma Correll, who reveals the various emotions playing across the faces of her characters with a few deftly drawn lines, and an easy text that lures emergent readers to jump in and read along, two peewee pets find peace and friendship as youngsters find a fun easy reader that's just perfect for two voices to perform together. For another pair of uncommon pals, pair this one with Jennifer Sattler's Chick 'n' Pug.

Whozzat? Smick by Doreen Cronin

GOOD, SMICK!

STICK?

Smick's off-page owner points out a stick (surprisingly, a digitally offered image of a real stick) and big, droopy-eared Smick is up for a game of throw-and-fetch--until a small Cluck is heard.

What? It's ... a CHICK?

What should Smick do with that? Fetch it like the stick? His human nixes that move quick!

There is a better way to play with a chick, and Smick and Chick soon figure that out, as Chick rides along on Smick's head as he fetches the stick. Chick is more fun than a stick. Chick is a sidechick! No, wait! He's a...

SIDEKICK!

And Smick's little sidekick chick sticks it out and earns a lick from Smick's long tongue in the latest preschool pleaser from Doreen Cronin (of Click Clack Moo fame).

Veteran wordsmith Cronin's Smick (Viking Press, 2015) shows again why she's a best-selling writer who knows how to use simple text to charm readers and to inspire illustrators to remarkable heights. Juana Medina's Smick is big, goofy white dog, outlined in thick, amorphous blackline, ready for anything, and his new friend is a bright-hued collaged leaf-shape with minimalist features and skinny bird legs, whose expressions extend Cronin's equally spare text. Dogs just wanna have fun, and with this playful pair, the author's slick rhyming vocabulary will have preschoolers "reading" their way through this delightful romp in the park. "This clever and appealing glimpse into the start of some delightful friendships is one doggone good time," says School Library Journal's starred review.

For more odd-couple pairings, share this one with Jennifer Sattler's Chick 'n' Pug or sequels. (See reviews here.)