★★★★★ 4
A Book About Friendship, Gumption and Happiness
Format: Hardcover
This book is an enthusiastic and inspired combination of stick drawings, challenging vocabulary, cheerful wordplay and shaggy dog, (literally), adventures. There is a tremendous sense of happy camaraderie among the doggy characters.
The drawing is intentionally amateurish; the dogs are stick figures. Except there's more going on here than you might imagine, and the author manages to fit a considerable amount of expression and personality into the drawings. You get a sort of "less is more" vibe, and the young reader is drawn into paying more attention to the writing. That said, the simple drawings clearly illustrate what's being related in the text and so end up being amusing and helpful. Let's hear it for stick drawings. Think Picasso, but with more tails.
The vocabulary is at a high but fair level - one dog doesn't speak to another, he "addresses" him. That's not outlandish, but it represents a real step up in the level of sophistication of the writing. The overall effect is that this is a book that encourages a young reader, ever so gently, to step up his or her game in terms of reading confidence and ability. Pretty nice for a stick figure dog story.
There is word play and a great deal of clever conversation. But, there's also just a lot of silly, engaging dog stuff. The dogs tease each other, compliment each other, and play with each other. They have adventures, meet other animals, and explore things. There are set pieces, but a lot of the action just involves Stick Dog's bemused management of this gang of knuckleheads.
The upshot is that the book is funny, calm and welcoming. It is sneaky in that it has charms that are not immediately evident, but that become clear as you read it. It's sort of like a stray dog that works its way into your home, (like Stick Dog himself). How cool is that.
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Reviewed in the United States on March 24, 2015
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