ALDO

It’s not easy being a ghost dog.

Camp’s naïve-style illustrations provide a suitably off-kilter atmosphere for this humorous tale translated from Spanish. A scruffy-looking gray pooch named Aldo gets tangled up in a sheet hanging out to dry and believes he’s left the world of the living. As a ghost, Aldo contends, no one can see when he steals food (though the disgruntled, racially diverse humans in the park would disagree). He also claims to have learned to fly (actually, he’s hopping), and he’s adopted a new bark (his canine friends don’t appreciate his prolonged “booooo!!!!”). So far, pretty standard for a goofy dog story. But then Aldo laments the one true sadness of his ghostly experience: He’s separated from his loved ones. Some readers may find the subsequent reveal hilarious, while others will see it as mean-spirited: Aldo spurns the tan-skinned human crying at home over his picture and instead focuses on his love for his favorite toy, a smiling red ball. Envisioning a series of romantic cliches (going on a movie date with the red ball, slurping a strand of spaghetti, Lady and the Tramp–style), Aldo grows increasingly dejected until he returns home, where both his human and his beloved toy await. The surrealist humor and obvious dissonance between Aldo’s narration and the illustrations will make this tale a big hit with some readers, though it may leave others cold.

A curious confection for audiences open to absurdism.