Digger Dog - Hardcover

Bee, William

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0763661627 ISBN 13: 9780763661625

Publisher: Nosy Crow, 2014

Synopsis

Digger Dog loves to dig up bones, the bigger the better. But for the biggest bone in the world, what will Digger Dog need? The biggest digger in the world, of course! All through the story, the diggers get bigger, the hole gets deeper, and there is a fantastic fold-out surprise at the end!

About this title

About the Author

William Bee was born in London, but now lives in the English countryside. As well as writing books, he races a vintage sports car, is an international skier, and when at home tends his lawns and meadow. He rarely leaves his tiny village, except for international skiing and vintage racing, but his daily walks lead to friendly encounters with the local wildlife. He knows the local weasels, grass snakes, moles, and hedgehogs, as well as the family of deer that lives in his yard.

Cecilia Johansson divides her time between her shared studio in arty Stockholm and her boyfriend’s small old cottage an hour outside the city, where the only neighbors are Mr. Elk and the Fox family. When not illustrating in her studio, she likes to play outdoors. She finds a lot of inspiration in nature and loves to go on long runs — she is training for her fifth marathon!

Review

Aptly named Digger Dog sniffs out a bone and with catchy, repetitive phrases, uses increasingly larger digging tools and vehicles to break the hard ground and retrieve it. ... Though the dirt is not all that dirty, with circles in shades of peach and pink over brown, the effect is engaging as readers eventually see much more of it as the fold-out pages enlarge to accommodate “the biggest digger in the whole world” and then reveal that the bone Digger Dog finally uncovers is only the (finger)tip of the iceberg. A fossilized dinosaur skeleton still lies undiscovered, making a trifecta of kid appeal: dogs, digging, and dinosaurs.
—School Library Journal (starred review)

Bee’s text is great fun to read aloud; the repetition will encourage audience participation. Johansson’s genial illustrations feature lots of colorful polka-dot embellishments, primarily on the ground and in the piles of dirt; good use of white space in the compositions prevents the dots from becoming distracting. Digging in dirt, an exciting parade of construction equipment, and dinosaur bones—this is a storytime trifecta.
—The Horn Book

Construction equipment–obsessed readers will probably find it pushes all the right buttons, especially since the repetition-driven story ends with a big finish in the form of two gatefolds: the first unfolds upward to pay tribute to the digger’s full size, and the second opens downward to reveal the T-Rex beneath the surface.
—Publishers Weekly

Archeologists have nothing on Digger Dog, who uses his superior sense of smell to find bones. ... Humorous illustrations incorporate a series of fold-out pages, which provide lots of fun for the younger set, as the construction vehicles get bigger and bigger to match the expanding and bottomless story line.
—Booklist

Humorous illustrations in bright, sunny colors are enhanced by graphic polka dot backgrounds throughout the book. Visual cohesiveness partnered with consistent text patterns make this picture book a winner.
—Reading Today Online

Edition details

• Publisher: Nosy Crow
• Publication date: 2014
• ISBN 10: 0763661627
• ISBN 13: 9780763661625
• Binding: Hardcover
• Language: English
• Number of pages: 36
• Illustrator: Johansson Cecilia