THAT’S MY DOG!

With waggy enthusiasm, one detail at a time, a lad presents his “big, red, happy, muddy, smart, bouncy, slobbery, sneaky, stinky” canine companion. Walton’s (How Can You Dance, see above, etc.) cumulating, emphatic text is printed in brightly colored, suitably bold type. Gorton’s (My Two Hands/My Two Feet, not reviewed, etc.) tidy little patches of mud and drops of slobber don’t quite convey the reality, but her boy and dog, posed against minimal or no backgrounds, are radiant with energy and affection. The format—tall, skinny, stiffly paged—mimics a photo album, and the endpapers are covered with adjectives, including a couple that don’t make it into the list inside. “ ‘Isn’t he a great dog!’ ” the child gushes at the end, presenting a gallery of his own pictures. Indubitably—though cat lovers and the unnecessarily fastidious may prefer the eponymous feline of Liz Graham-Yooll’s Timothy Tib (not reviewed). (Picture book. 5-7)