LOOK WHAT I SEE

A young dog reflects on all the ways life can be viewed from different vantage points.

From dawn, when the protagonist wakes to view a bedroom ceiling, to nighttime, when the same dog views a moonlit sky from the same bedroom’s window, readers experience one day in the life of this pup. The verso of each double-page spread shows readers the scene the dog inhabits, while the recto shows them a new point of view. At breakfast they see the upside-down face of the pup in the concave reflection from a spoon, and at bathtime they see tub toys floating above them. The first-person narration simply describes each scene with clauses beginning with “when….” Ron Barrett’s chunky pencil drawings with muted colors do a lovely job of illustrating some tricky moments, particularly how things would look from the inside of a T-shirt. While this is a clever exploration of perspective, the board-book format is not a good choice for the exercise, as the core audience is still often learning that others may have a different point of view from themselves.

Here’s hoping that older children discover this clever exploration, even if they feel they’ve moved beyond board books.