WHEN JACK GOES OUT
by Pat Schories & illustrated by Pat Schories
As a follow-up to Schories’s previous wordless book Jack and the Night Visitors (2006), a boy takes his dog, Jack, outside and hooks him up to his leash by his doghouse. When the boy goes back inside, a spaceship full of little robot “night visitors” lands next to Jack. The robots tumble out and encourage Jack to play with them. They unhook his leash, and page by page readers follows their antics. They roughhouse in the sand box, splash in the pond and make general mischief. In a surprising moment at the end, the robots hook Jack’s leash to their spaceship and try to take him with them. Luckily his leash slips off his neck, and the spaceship disappears. Jack’s owner comes back out, puzzled, to see Jack barking at the sky without his leash on. The cheerful illustrations clearly narrate the story, and Jack couldn’t be cuter. The possibility of abduction by leash, however, rings an odd note. Still fun, quirky and easy to follow for pre-readers. (Picture book. 2-5)