I Can See Clearly Now....: Douglas, You Need Glasses by Ged Adamson

NANCY AND DOUGLAS WERE CHASING SQUIRRELS

AT LEAST, DOUGLAS THOUGHT HE WAS CHASING SQUIRRELS.

A girl and her pooch out for a romp through the autumn woodland! How idyllic!

But there's a problem.

Douglas the dog seems to be a bit hard-of-seeing! He runs right by a smirking squirrel laughing on a tree trunk, earnestly in hot pursuit of a wind-driven leaf!

YOU SEE, DOUGLAS HAD ALWAYS BEEN A VERY NEAR-SIGHTED DOG.

Douglas doesn't do any better in town. He clomps straight through fresh concrete patching a sidewalk, oblivious of the sign that clearly reads WET CEMENT! He mistakes her hat, scarf, and coat hanging on the stairway banister post for Nancy herself. And one embarrassing day, he goes in the wrong house and is discovered eating from another dog's dish, clearly labeled BARNEY. Worst of all, when Nancy tosses a football into the trees for Douglas to fetch, he returns with a wasp nest trailing its angry residents in his mouth. Yipes!

This is serious. Something must be done.

So Nancy escorts Douglas downtown to a shop with a sign that says OPTICIAN, decorated by a big pair of glasses.

DOUGLAS SAID, "WHY ARE YOU TAKING ME TO A SHOE SHOP?"

Nancy leads her dog inside and introduces him to the eye doctor, and Douglas faces the eye chart exam. But this is not the usual chart with the big E on the top line. This one is just for dogs, with a big, black silhouette of a squirrel right on top, and a cat, car, bus, bone, and leaf in descending sizes.

"NOW, DOUGLAS," SAID THE DOC, "TELL ME WHAT YOU SEE!"

And when Douglas identifies the squirrel as a dinosaur and the leaf as a squirrel, the eye doctor's diagnosis is confirmed, and Douglas gets to pick out the glasses that he needs and pronounces them "amazing."

All's well that ends well, with Douglas bouncing home, happy with his new glasses, but still convinced that he's chasing squirrels blowing in the wind, in Ged Adamson's hilarious Douglas, You Need Glasses! (Schwartz and Wade, 2016). Ged Adamson's brief text plays straight man to his comic illustrations of Douglas' myopic mistakes. Adamson's woods, with trees with brightly colored trunks, and his cartoon-styled dogs and squirrels adds a light touch to this bit of bibliotherapy for what can be somewhat traumatic experience for kids for whom glasses are clearly a necessity. The author even ends his book with a double-page spread of photos picturing "Real Kids Who Wear Glasses!" As kids most of us feared being "different" from our peers in any way, and this funny dog tale offers empathy for kids who are a little phobic of the four-eyed phenomenon.

Meet the Neighbors! Douglas, You're a Genius! by Ged Adamson

Nancy and Douglas were playing ball in the backyard when Nancy hit one too hard. And of all the places it could have gone inside the fenced-in yard, the ball rolls straight through a small hole at the bottom of the fence.

"I'd say that one's a goner," said Doug.

But the ball came rolling back through the fence straight to them.

What? Who? How? Doug and Nancy have got to know!

"I have an idea!" said Doug.

Doug runs inside and comes out with a toy train and some track and soon sends the train rolling back under the fence with a note.

"THANK YOU! WE ARE NANCY AND DOUG."

And the train returns straightway, with a note.

"HOLA! QUIEREMOS CONOCERTE!"

Huh? What? How? Now Nancy and Doug have to solve the mystery. Nancy is full of plans for seeing who's on the other side of the fence. She tries getting Doug to jump on the toy trampoline and vault over the fence, but he only makes it onto the tree. She tries a rocket belt strapped to Doug's back with two shaken liters or soft drinks to propel him up and over.

The flight is a fizzle.

Poor Doug has to try pole vaulting.... and getting a lift from a floating kite... until at last Nancy is out of uplifting ideas.

Now it's Doug's turn. He starts digging a hole beside the fence. Nancy is pleased. He's making a tunnel under the fence. That could work....

But NO! That's not Doug's idea. The pile of excavated dirt grows until it is as tall as the fence, and with a mountain-climbing ax, Doug ascends to the peak and is able to peer over the fence at last.

"HOLA!"

"HELLO!"

There's a boy and his dog on the other side, and soon the two sets of gizmo inventors have devised a way to cross over the fence, in Ged Adamson's latest shaggy dog story, Douglas, You're a Genius! (Schwartz and Wade). Author-illustrator Adamson's humorous tale of bridging differences proves poet Robert Frost's famous quote, "Something there is that does not love a wall." There are quite enough Rube Goldberg contraptions and contrivances in both yards to suggest that the two kids and two dogs have plenty in common to share. Ged Adamson's first book about Nancy and her nearsighted shaggy dog Doug is Douglas, You Need Glasses! (read review here)

Booklist says, "...this amusing picture book also shows that goals can be reached cooperatively through planning, ingenuity, and goodwill.

Overnighter! Naughty Mabel Sees It All by Nathan Lane and Devlin Elliott

"Okay, Darlings, before I turn the page, let me preface this by saying that what you are about to see isn't entirely my fault.

Now I know this looks bad, but let a girl explain."

Mabel, that doggy diva, is back. A pampered society pet, this social-climbing French bulldog, is thrilled, darlings, to have copped an invitation for a sleepover with her posh neighbors, Smarty Cat and Scaredy Cat.

The overnighter comes as a welcome break. Mabel is becoming a bit bored with watching Martha Stewart cooking yet another couscous dish. And then she mistakes a bowl of potpourri for her doggy dish, resulting in a definite improvement in her breath, and, um, other odours, but otherwise no cure for her ennui.

So it is with great anticipation and elan that she packs "everything" for the occasion at the mansion of Smarty and Scaredy's mother, the creme de la creme of elite society and academia, the noted paleontologist, Professor Millicent Murgatroyd, Her hostess, however, serves up only old black and white movies for entertainment, not Mabel's cup of tea.

But although Mabel comes prepared to see some old bones lying about, she is not prepared for what she does see. One shadowy monster on the wall becomes two, and then the two multiply into many.

I knew it was a monster. The room was crawling with them!

I grabbed the nearest weapon (Millicent Murgatroyd's walker). She did not seem to appreciate my efforts.

Maybe if she cleaned up her house once in a while, it would not be infested with monsters.

I decided this wasn't the best time to bring that up!

Faced with a strangely rampaging guest lambasting her dinosaur skulls and fancy furniture, Professor Murgatroyd calls Mabel's parents to come for her, and Mabel goes home in disgrace. So much for her high society sleepover.

But all is forgiven when Mabel is discovered to have double vision and she is off to the octopotamus for an eye exam and new contacts, in Nathan Lane and Devlin Elliott's second book about a stylish but naughty French bulldog, Naughty Mabel Sees It All (Simon and Schuster, 2016). Although Mabel's self-consciously snooty references to the passe' couscous and potpourri may be marginally funny for adult read-alouders, it will go over the heads of younger readers, and while her slapstick destruction of the neighbor's household may please younger listeners, it may all seem a bit silly to third-graders, but for those many fans of the first book, Naughty Mabel, (see review here) this tale of the diplopic Mabel may be an amusing episode in the life of this posh and pampered pooch.

As a bit of reassurance to kids who wear glasses, pair this one with Ged Adamson's quite funny, Douglas, You Need Glasses! (see review here).