STICK DOG DREAMS OF ICE CREAM

Will Stick Dog and his buddies find a way to beat the heat?

Stick Dog and his canine friends—spotted Stripes, dim-bulb Mutt, poodle Poo-Poo and Karen—are tired of the heat. They need to find some food, some water and a way to stay cool. Their hunt for water is interrupted by Poo-Poo’s squirrel obsession, until Stick Dog tricks him by playing to his vanity. They find a bunch of small humans playing with an odd contraption that the dogs decide is some kind of water weapon, but it’s too slow with the water to cool them down. (It’s a sprinkler.) When they hear annoying music and see a strange truck that makes the humans act oddly, they wonder what this “ice cream” is (dogs can read) and how it leaves delicious rainbow puddles behind. Can they get some for themselves? Stick Dog’s fourth food-centric adventure brings nothing new to the series. The slightly clueless Stick Dog leads his totally clueless friends to eventual success in finding food in a human world they don’t understand. The Wimpy Kid–like stick drawings on faux lined paper (why?) do little to keep the pages turning.

The single joke now in its fourth retelling is only for fans of the series…they may prefer squirrel watching to joining Stick Dog this time.