Dog's Colorful Day:A Messy Story About Colors and Counting

Dog always seems to be underfoot when something messy (and colorful) is spilt, giving readers ten different spots on his white coat to count before book's end and Dog's bath.

PreS-Gr 1-This book pulls together colors, counting, sounds, and the simple adventures of a lovable pup. Dog, who is white with one black spot on his ear, spends the day from breakfast to bedtime getting into mischief and into a variety of cumulative messes. Red jam gives him two additional spots; blue paint, three; green grass, four; and so on, until he is covered with 10 spots of various colors, each of which makes a unique sound as it hits his coat: "swish," "splosh," "splurt." When he is given a bath at last, he is clean and single-spotted, and he crawls into bed to dream of colorful bones. Dodd's full-page cartoon illustrations with computer-assisted hues are vibrant, snappy, and exciting. Placement of text, sound words, and goofy Dog himself on each page is humorous and satisfying. A multifaceted concept book and a charming story to boot.-Beth Tegart, Oneida City Schools, NY

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

The hero of this pleasant concept book is a plump sausage of a canine: "As you can see, Dog is white with one black spot on his left ear." But by the end of the day, he has turned into a veritable canvas of 10 colorful spots, nine of which have nothing to do with genetics. "Dog follows a little boy with chocolate," writes Dodd (What Does It Look Like?), after Dog has accumulated three other spots of, respectively, red jam, blue paint and grass stain. "The boy gives Dog a chocolaty pat--but no chocolate. Now Dog has five spots." After a recap of all the pooch's spots, and a bath by Dog's owner (who accidentally added the 10th spot of purple marker), Dog returns to his natural look, with that one original spot, cuddled contentedly in his basket and dreaming of multicolored bones. Dog's zaftig physique and wide-eyed good humor are doggone charming, while the combinations of thick, scraggly black outlines and dense swathes of digitally applied candy-color make every encounter with a new spot pop off the page. Ages 2-5.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

Ages 2-5. This color and counting book stars a big, scruffy looking dog with one black spot on his left ear. As the day goes by, more spots accumulate on Dog's coat--a splat of red jam dropped from the breakfast table ("Now Dog has two spots"), a grass stain, a chocolate pat from a boy, yellow pollen from a bee, and more, until Dog has 10 spots in all. Dodd's heavily outlined drawings with digitally applied color give this counting book a bold look, and the great sound words (splat! splurt!, etc.) ensure this will be used for reading aloud. A book that will make learning colors and counting fun, this will also appeal to children's love of making a mess. Connie Fletcher
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