MY DOG IS BEST

An early reader about kids’ best friends.

“My dog is best,” declare a group of aggressively kooky children. One dog is best because “he can jump,” another is best because “she likes hugs,” and other pooches are best because they’re large, small, helpful, or playful. The repetition of “My dog is best” and the slight variations that follow throughout will help newly literate audiences gain confidence and fluency. Given the necessary restraints placed upon the text, the art must do some heavy lifting to keep this approach from falling into Dick-and-Jane dullness, and Catrow succeeds wildly. Many of the children and dogs are appealingly and hilariously caricaturelike, while others are simply sweet, and the wonky background illustrations of toys and other accouterments of childhood will help keep the interest of young ones working their way through the letters. The book wraps up by assuring readers that their dog might, in fact, be the best—a conclusion that will quell any feelings of jealousy or whataboutism (unless the reader in question deeply wants a dog and can’t have one). Children are diverse in terms of skin tones and hair styles.

This book is best at what it’s trying to do.