Doctor White

PreS-Gr 2—Based on the true story of a little white dog adopted by a London children's hospital, this affecting picture book pays tribute to the healing power of the human-animal bond. Doctor White is more than a stray dog. He's a beacon of hope to the children he visits and nothing short of a miracle to the hospital staff for the way he instinctively knows which children are the sickest and stays by their sides until they grow well. But when the health inspector turns him out, Doctor White is cut off from his patients—until the health inspector's own daughter falls ill and a nurse breaks the rules to bring Doctor White's healing touch to her. As his daughter recovers, the health inspector himself returns Doctor White's bowl to the hospital kitchen. The straightforward text never lapses into cuteness or anthropomorphism, and Litty's sketchy watercolors employ a faded palette that evokes a sense of old photographs, rendering the story immediate yet giving it a sense of history.—Kathleen Kelly MacMillan, Carroll County Public Library, MD