Owners of goldendoodles, Maryland residents and families with runners will find this story touching.
In this true story, a goldendoodle named Dozer runs away from home and then runs a half marathon, becoming a celebrated canine mascot and fundraiser for cancer in the process.
Dozer is outside in his own rural yard in Highland, Md., when runners from the Maryland Half Marathon begin running by. The spunky dog joins the group of 2,000 runners, continuing on for almost the entire 13-mile race. His family has no idea he left to join the race, and he is gone for 24 hours before finally limping home. Within a few days, race officials track him down and present Dozer with a marathon medal. An author’s note explains that Dozer was filmed crossing the finish line with the other runners, leading to hundreds of pledges in his name that raised $25,000 for a cancer center in Maryland. The text of the story is rather wordy but also amusing, with emphasis on all the smells that entice Dozer along on his run. Soft-focus illustrations add humor with anthropomorphic expressions on Dozer’s face and realistic views of marathon runners in action. The intriguing nature of Dozer’s celebrity and effectiveness as a fundraiser for the cancer center is conveyed through the author’s note rather than through the story and illustrations, but Dozer is a charmer nonetheless.
Owners of goldendoodles, Maryland residents and families with runners will find this story touching. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: May 1, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-58536-896-9
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Sleeping Bear Press
Review Posted Online: April 15, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: May 1, 2014
Hee haw.
The print version of a knee-slapping cumulative ditty.
In the song, Smith meets a donkey on the road. It is three-legged, and so a “wonky donkey” that, on further examination, has but one eye and so is a “winky wonky donkey” with a taste for country music and therefore a “honky-tonky winky wonky donkey,” and so on to a final characterization as a “spunky hanky-panky cranky stinky-dinky lanky honky-tonky winky wonky donkey.” A free musical recording (of this version, anyway—the author’s website hints at an adults-only version of the song) is available from the publisher and elsewhere online. Even though the book has no included soundtrack, the sly, high-spirited, eye patch–sporting donkey that grins, winks, farts, and clumps its way through the song on a prosthetic metal hoof in Cowley’s informal watercolors supplies comical visual flourishes for the silly wordplay. Look for ready guffaws from young audiences, whether read or sung, though those attuned to disability stereotypes may find themselves wincing instead or as well.
Hee haw. (Picture book. 5-7)Pub Date: May 1, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-545-26124-1
Page Count: 26
Publisher: Scholastic
Review Posted Online: Dec. 28, 2018
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
An immersive, charming read and convincing proof again that even small bodies can house stout hearts.
Can knightly deeds bring together a feathered odd couple who are on opposite daily schedules?
Having won over a dragon (and millions of fans) in the Caldecott Honor–winning Knight Owl (2022), the fierce yet impossibly cute nocturnal, armor-clad owlet faces a new challenge—sleep deprivation—in the wake of taking on Early Bird, a trainee who rises with the sun and chatters interminably: “I made pancakes! Do you like pancakes? I love pancakes! Where’s the syrup?” It’s enough to test the patience of even the knightliest of owls, and eventually Knight Owl explodes in anger. But although Early Bird is even smaller than her mentor, she turns out to be just as determined to achieve knighthood. After he tells her to leave, she acquits herself so nobly in a climactic encounter with a pack of wolves that she earns a place at the castle. Denise proves a dab hand at depicting genuinely slinky, scary wolves as well as slipping cheerfully anachronistic newspapers and other sight gags into his realistically wrought medieval settings to underscore the tale’s tongue-in-cheek tone. Better yet, a final view of the doughty duo sitting down together to a lavish pancake breakfast/dinner at dusk ends the episode in a sweet rush of syrup and bonhomie.
An immersive, charming read and convincing proof again that even small bodies can house stout hearts. (Picture book. 5-8)Pub Date: Oct. 15, 2024
ISBN: 9780316564526
Page Count: 48
Publisher: Christy Ottaviano Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 5, 2024
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Jan. 1, 2025
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