Wild and Wary

Perhaps you’ve seen the dog dictum from Francesco Marciuliano’s collection of dog poems I Could Chew on This:

We were wolves once

Wild and wary

Then we noticed you have sofas

It has toured social media in a variety of memes. To illustrate this point in a non-meme way, Lucy is snoring beside me, in my bed, while I write this post. This is the first summer in eight years that I will have only one dog and I have promised Lucy that we will have some adventures together. Before she fell asleep, I read Lucy a bedtime story about one dog’s adventures.

Andrea Zuill’s debut picture book, Wolf Camp,  combines the idea of the wolf ancestor with summer adventure at a camp where city dogs can get in touch with their inner wolf.

Publisher’s Summary: Meet Homer, a dog who heads to camp to live like a wolf! Here’s the perfect book for the legions of kids out there who love dogs and funny books.

Homer is a dog . . . but he also secretly fancies himself part wolf. So when an invitation to attend WOLF CAMP (“Where every dog can live as a wolf for a week”) falls out of his kibble bag one morning, he’s determined to go. After his people finally agree, Homer boards the bus bound for Wolf Camp, along with fellow campers Trixie and Rex. They’re greeted on the other end by wolf counselors Fang and Grrr (“they seem nice”), and what follows is an array of wolf activities, including learning to howl, mark, and hunt. Of course, Homer’s a little homesick at times, and the food isn’t very good, but that just makes heading home all the sweeter.Perfect for all those kids anticipating camp themselves, Zuill’s debut introduces a charmer of a dog and puts him in some laugh-out-loud scenarios.

As many of us have experienced, camp takes a little getting used to. My favorite line comes after their first “fresh” meal and Rex, Homer’s large friend says “It’s got hair on it.”

The text and illustrations work together marvelously well. Brilliantly funny and touching, this is a great book for dog lovers, kids setting off to camp for the first time and anyone who loves a laugh. I can think of this a great mentor text to inspire young writers to create funny tales about other kinds of crazy camps. I highly recommend this one.

BORING? Subversive!

Meet the Dullards. Their home is boring. Their food is plain. Their lives are monotonous. And Mr. and Mrs. Dullard like it that way.

But their children–Blanda, Borely, and Little Dud–have other ideas. . . .

Mr. & Mrs. Dullard decide to move when their children show a spark of color. Literally. But no matter what they do, the children keep rebelling against the life of dullness their parents have mapped out for them. They refuse to watch the paint dry.

As they are unpacking in their new home, a friendly neighbor stops by with a house warming gift.

“‘Welcome to the neighborhood,’ she said. ‘I baked you an applesauce cake!’
‘Please don’t use exclamation marks in front of our children.'”

This is the sort of humor infused into the book. Some of it might be a little more advanced than the readers who are most likely to pick up this book, but this also make it the sort of picture book that older readers can enjoy as a mentor test.

I really enjoyed Daniel Salmieri’s illustrations which capture the dullness and vibrancy of the Dullard family.