DOT THE FIRE DOG

A usually venturesome artist tries for a younger audience, with cutesy, sticky-sweet results. When the alarm goes off, Dot the firehouse dog dons a helmet and races with her firefighting crew to a burning house. While the firefighters tackle the rather tidy blaze and rescue an old resident, Dot carries out his slippers, then goes back to bring out a kitten, earning a lick on the nose (from the kitten) once the fire is out. The pictures are reduced to essentials, with large, simple, static forms, sharply divided areas of saturated, more or less evenly applied colors, and minimal shading. A page of fire safety tips, some of which seem to be addressed more to adults, is appended. The big red fire engine will please post-toddlers (and the varied skin tones of its crew’s men and women, their parents), but next to Chris L. Demarest’s Firefighters A to Z (2000) or Gail Gibbons’ classic Fire! Fire! (1984), there’s not much here but empty calories. Reserved for that reader who wants anything at all about firefighters. (Picture book. 3-5)