Katz has written several well-received books for adults about his working dogs and their life together at Bedlam Farm in upstate New York (Dog Days, 2007, etc.). In his first book for children, he introduces four of his canine companions and describes their personalities, specific jobs and interactions. Rose is a border collie whose job is herding sheep on the farm. Izzy is another border collie, a rescue dog who is now a therapy dog visiting patients in hospitals, and Frieda is a large, mixed-breed dog who guards the farm. Lenore is a black lab who appears throughout the story, along with the repeating refrain, “But what is Lenore’s job?” The concluding pages present Lenore as the guiding spirit of the dog pack, a playful, friendly dog who keeps the whole group happy. Her job is “loving and accepting and having patience.” The not-so-subtle message is that each individual contributes to a successful group in ways that are not always immediately apparent. The simple, informative story is illustrated with high-quality photographs of the dogs in action, using a wide variety of shots and settings that add visual interest. Young dog lovers will enjoy this, particularly those who own border collies or black labs. (Picture book. 4-8)
Pub Date: April 26, 2011
ISBN: 978-0-8050-9219-6
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: April 6, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
A gleeful game for budding naturalists.
Artfully cropped animal portraits challenge viewers to guess which end they’re seeing.
In what will be a crowd-pleasing and inevitably raucous guessing game, a series of close-up stock photos invite children to call out one of the titular alternatives. A page turn reveals answers and basic facts about each creature backed up by more of the latter in a closing map and table. Some of the posers, like the tail of an okapi or the nose on a proboscis monkey, are easy enough to guess—but the moist nose on a star-nosed mole really does look like an anus, and the false “eyes” on the hind ends of a Cuyaba dwarf frog and a Promethea moth caterpillar will fool many. Better yet, Lavelle saves a kicker for the finale with a glimpse of a small parasitical pearlfish peeking out of a sea cucumber’s rear so that the answer is actually face and butt. “Animal identification can be tricky!” she concludes, noting that many of the features here function as defenses against attack: “In the animal world, sometimes your butt will save your face and your face just might save your butt!” (This book was reviewed digitally.)
A gleeful game for budding naturalists. (author’s note) (Informational picture book. 6-8)Pub Date: July 11, 2023
ISBN: 9781728271170
Page Count: 40
Publisher: Sourcebooks eXplore
Review Posted Online: May 9, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: June 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute.
Readers bid farewell to a beloved canine character.
Momo is—or was—an adorable and very photogenic border collie owned by author Knapp. The many readers who loved him in the previous half-dozen books are in for a shock with this one. “Momo had died” is the stark reality—and there are no photographs of him here. Instead, Momo has been replaced by a flat cartoonish pastiche with strange, staring round white eyes, inserted into some of Knapp’s photography (which remains appealing, insofar as it can be discerned under the mixed media). Previous books contained few or no words. Unfortunately, virtuosity behind a lens does not guarantee mastery of verse. The art here is accompanied by words that sometimes rhyme but never find a workable or predictable rhythm (“We’d fetch and we’d catch, / we’d run and we’d jump. Every day we found new / games to play”). It’s a pity, because the subject—a pet’s death—is an important one to address with children. Of course, Momo isn’t gone; he can still be found “everywhere” in memories. But alas, he can be found here only in the crude depictions of the darling dog so well known from the earlier books.
A well-meaning but lackluster tribute. (Picture book. 4-8)Pub Date: Feb. 6, 2024
ISBN: 9781683693864
Page Count: 32
Publisher: Quirk Books
Review Posted Online: Nov. 4, 2023
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2023
BOOK REVIEW
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