If You Give a Dog a Donut Hardcover – Picture Book, 4 Oct. 2011

Love these books

"He who passes by and meddles in a quarrel not his ownIs like one who takes a dog by the ears." -- Proverbs 26:17 (NKJV)When I first read the title of this book, I shook my head in amazement. Who but Laura Numeroff could have come up with such a novel introduction for a beginning reader? Any child who has or likes dogs is going to be intrigued. Herman Melville (who was no slouch when it came to powerful book openings . . . "Call me Ishmael.") would have been impressed.My next thought was, "I wonder where the story goes from there?" Well, I was hooked and I'm glad I was.The book follows the usual reversed theme of a youngster patiently waiting on an animal, in the role that a parent or older sibling might play for an inquisitive child.What makes the book more fun than usual is that giving a dog a donut is such a weird idea. Before long, we are outdoors where the fun rapidly escalates. I liked the ways that the connections from one thing to another were pretty logical . . . as an offset to the dog-donut pairing.As usual, the illustrations by Felicia Bond take a bare-bones story and add a lot of humor and context. I especially liked the touches of the donut having icing and sprinkles on the cover, the dog knocking on a screen door with an empty food bowl in its paw on the title page, the dog helping itself to donuts on the kitchen table, the dog on a skateboard hauling along a laundry basket that's rapidly losing its contents, the rickety backyard fence, the dog doing a one-paw stand upside down while juggling a ball on the fence, the dog wearing the bandana, and the dog leaping for joy on the last page.The words are simple enough to make it easy for a beginning reader to first memorize the story and begin to "read" it by remembering which words go with which illustrations. From there, an older reader can help the beginning reader to identify individual words . . . amidst the giggles this book will generate.If you are tired of reading the same old stories for the 999th time, give yourself a new book that will bring many smiles to your face and that of your beginning reader with If You Give a Dog a Donut.Brava, Laura Numeroff! Brava, Felicia Bond!