Oh, Tucker!

Tucker, Thelma's exuberant puppy, zigs, zags, wags his tail, and knocks over everything in the house even before he has had his breakfast, and while the family is exasperated with his lively antics, they are unable to resist loving him.

PreSchool-Grade 3AWhen Thelma's dog, Tucker, is called to breakfast, he goes bounding through the house knocking over anything that's not nailed down. The story is punctuated with a "Wham!" each time he crashes into something, followed by the refrain "Oh, Tucker!" as the child sees what happens. The exuberant pup finally comes to rest when he sees and digs into his breakfast. How can Thelma scold such unbridled enthusiasm? She can't. She hugs her pet and the story concludes with him thumping his tail, "Wham! Wham! Wham! Wham!" Large, boldface type and colorful illustrations fill the pages and reinforce the chaos the canine creates. Nash's pictures, done in watercolor, pencil, and ink, show a larger-than-life pooch rendered in a cartoon style that sends both character and action running off the pages and into readers' imaginations. This book cries out for call-and-response storytelling.ASusan M. Moore, Louisville Free Public Library, KY
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Bursting onto the scene like a force of nature, Tucker, a rambunctious pooch, has a penchant for pandemonium. Wherever he goesA"WHAM!"Ahe creates a trail of disaster, leaving broken china, overturned furniture and overall chaos in his wake. When his young mistress calls him in to breakfast, he bounds inside and hurtles through the house, leaping onto beds ("Mom and Dad were fast asleep. Tucker didn't mind"), licking faces and knocking absolutely everything out of whack. He may be a trial and a tribulation, he may be the source of much exasperation, but lucky for him he's a much-loved dog ("Such a nice dog. Such a friendly dog. Who could possibly scold him?"). Tucker's boisterous energy emanates from each element of this tightly knit collaboration, even the typefaceAsurging across the page in uneven, curving lines and varying in size, it makes as much of a statement as Tucker does. Nash (Saturday Night at the Dinosaur Stomp) pares down the compositions and revs up the motion. His kinetic watercolor, pencil and ink illustrations harness Tucker's exuberance and send it zooming over the spreads. Readers are likely to get swept up in the momentum. Ages 4-8.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Ages 2^-5. The evenly spaced craters across the backyard that are Tucker's paw prints immediately prepare readers to meet a very large dog. What greets them is, indeed, an enormous and unharnessable bundle of energy that bounds across the pages as he tears through the house. In his exuberance to say hello to his human family, Tucker tips over tables, knocks lamps to the floor, slides down the stairs, and even zooms along the hall on a skateboard before a crash into the kitchen sink finally slows him down long enough to eat his breakfast. Fortunately, Tucker's family is resigned to his exhausting and unintentionally destructive enthusiasm and adores him for the friendly and loving pup he is. Nash's lighthearted illustrations brighten the humor of Tucker's slapstick race through the house and into readers' hearts. Ellen Mandel