Run, Dog!

PreS-K—Boyer uses digital art to illustrate her mostly wordless story about a dog in pursuit of a ball that bounces among a variety of people, animals, and things before it lands at the feet of its owner. Every other spread has two partial pages in between where the route of the ball is incrementally revealed. It bounces from a trampoline to a boy's head, into a circle of pigeons and into the zoo until it bounds off another head before reaching its final destination. On the inside back cover, a boy and the dog, reunited, are seen riding off on a pink scooter. The palette is unusual. The dog is orange/gold and the ball red, and all of the humans are drawn in black silhouettes; everything else (trees, giraffe, stop sign, etc.) is pink or blue. The minimal text is made up of simple active verbs: "Jump," "Catch," "Run," "Fetch," and "Go," plus, at the climax, "Good dog." The story can be extended through a discussion with a child about the action described in the simple text and creative illustrations.—Maralita L. Freeny, District of Columbia Public Library