Circle dogs
(Book)

Ages 2^-5. "Two circle dogs live in a big square house." Part loving pet story, part math lesson, this picture book dramatizes the toddler's visceral, joyful, licking, cuddling bond with two circle dachshunds. At the same time, kids will see the simple shapes in the house that the family and dogs share through the day. The direct physical words and the clear, bright gouache pictures, which are like cutouts on lots of white space, will draw in youngsters to interact with the pages, imitating the sounds ("Kibble-clatter, kibble-nibble") as the dogs crunch their circle snacks in circle bowls or run in circles in the square yard or curl up in circles to sleep and sleep and sleep. Many concept books, such as Tana Hoban's Round & Round & Round (1983), use photos and other illustrations to identify shapes in everyday life. Here it is the playful doggie tale that will lead kids to find circles, squares, and triangles wherever they look. --Hazel Rochman

Henkes, who spoke to an elementary-age audience in Owen and Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, here gets down to basics with this lively description of a day in the life of two dachshunds. The tube-shaped dogs‘one rust-orange with black ears, the other vice versa (both have blue noses and collars)‘form circles while they are resting. At dawn, they uncurl and greet a mother, father, little girl and baby boy ("clink-clank,... clink./ Hear their tags?/ Mrooon, mro-o-o-o-on./ They stretch and stretch and moan and yawn"). The story follows a morning-to-evening sequence of mealtimes, playtimes and naptimes, and comes full-circle, as it were, with the dogs bedded down for the night. Henkes infuses even this simplest of texts with humor: at breakfast, "Papa drops his toast./ Oops! Where did it go?/ The circle dogs know." He balances full sentences with fragments, and punctuates the story with the everyday sounds of barking, crunching and doorbell-ringing. Yaccarino's (Goodnight, Mr. Night) opaque, geometric graphics and limited gouache palette complement the concise statements. Squares and rectangles form window views inside and outside the house, and hem in the fluid shapes of the dogs and people. Author and artist judiciously repeat imagery and phrases ("Mama calls them pooches. `Those pooches!' says Mama"); and the diversity of words and sentence structures ensure a book that runs circles around the usual primer. Ages 2-up. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

PreS-Gr 1-A love letter to dachshunds, called "circle dogs" because of their ability to form that shape with their bodies. The text is simple, almost primerlike, with lots of onomatopoetic words: "Circle dogs like circle snacks-crunch, crunch, crunch-right from your hand." The pooches play, dig holes (and get yelled at), sniff Baby's face and lick Big Sister's, bounce, bark, and sleep (a lot). The lively gouache paintings in large flat areas of color have a retro look, somewhat reminiscent of Lane Smith's work in The Happy Hocky Family! (Viking, 1993) or Yaccarino's illustrations for Laura Godwin's Little White Dog (Hyperion, 1998). Besides the circles made by the dachshunds, there are lots of other shapes to pick out in the pictures. Fun for the youngest dog lovers.-Pam Gosner, formerly at Maplewood Memorial Library, NJ (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Circles, rectangles, triangles, and other distinct shapes configure to create the stylized, high-contrast illustrations in this day in the life of two dachshunds and the family they live with. The lilting text contains much onomatopoeia and repetition as it describes the dogs playing, eating, napping, making mischief, and finally curling up to sleep for the night. From HORN BOOK Spring 1999, (c) Copyright 2010. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Shapes cavort in the form of circle dogs (long thin dachshunds that chase their tails, forming circles) that live in a big square house in this delightful book for the very young. Imitative of the early work of Margaret Wise Brown, this collaboration has the retro look, feel, and sound of her classic Noisy Book series. Yaccarino uses essentially the four-color palette of a few decades back, set against a creamy vanilla background, with a bolder, more graphic, and deliberately contemporary design that plays with the rearrangement of space to show circle dogs that clink-clank their tags and flip-flap their tails. Circle dogs dig circle holes and eat from circle bowls. They snap at the air, lick Big Sister's face, and sleep a lot in simple pictures that emphasize shape and form, with circles everywhere: the mouths of people, the tips of dog's noses, the bones of a steak, the dogs themselves. Henkes completes the goodnight tale with just the right amount of sounds for the sensory enjoyment of preschoolers. (Picture book. 2-4)

Ages 2^-5. "Two circle dogs live in a big square house." Part loving pet story, part math lesson, this picture book dramatizes the toddler's visceral, joyful, licking, cuddling bond with two circle dachshunds. At the same time, kids will see the simple shapes in the house that the family and dogs share through the day. The direct physical words and the clear, bright gouache pictures, which are like cutouts on lots of white space, will draw in youngsters to interact with the pages, imitating the sounds ("Kibble-clatter, kibble-nibble") as the dogs crunch their circle snacks in circle bowls or run in circles in the square yard or curl up in circles to sleep and sleep and sleep. Many concept books, such as Tana Hoban's Round & Round & Round (1983), use photos and other illustrations to identify shapes in everyday life. Here it is the playful doggie tale that will lead kids to find circles, squares, and triangles wherever they look. ((Reviewed September 15, 1998)) Copyright 2000 Booklist Reviews

Henkes, who spoke to an elementary-age audience in Owen and Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, here gets down to basics with this lively description of a day in the life of two dachshunds. The tube-shaped dogs one rust-orange with black ears, the other vice versa (both have blue noses and collars) form circles while they are resting. At dawn, they uncurl and greet a mother, father, little girl and baby boy ("clink-clank,... clink./ Hear their tags?/ Mrooon, mro-o-o-o-on./ They stretch and stretch and moan and yawn"). The story follows a morning-to-evening sequence of mealtimes, playtimes and naptimes, and comes full-circle, as it were, with the dogs bedded down for the night. Henkes infuses even this simplest of texts with humor: at breakfast, "Papa drops his toast./ Oops! Where did it go?/ The circle dogs know." He balances full sentences with fragments, and punctuates the story with the everyday sounds of barking, crunching and doorbell-ringing. Yaccarino's (Goodnight, Mr. Night) opaque, geometric graphics and limited gouache palette complement the concise statements. Squares and rectangles form window views inside and outside the house, and hem in the fluid shapes of the dogs and people. Author and artist judiciously repeat imagery and phrases ("Mama calls them pooches. `Those pooches!' says Mama"); and the diversity of words and sentence structures ensure a book that runs circles around the usual primer. Ages 2-up. (Sept.) Copyright 1998 Publishers Weekly Reviews

PreS-Gr 1-A love letter to dachshunds, called "circle dogs" because of their ability to form that shape with their bodies. The text is simple, almost primerlike, with lots of onomatopoetic words: "Circle dogs like circle snacks-crunch, crunch, crunch-right from your hand." The pooches play, dig holes (and get yelled at), sniff Baby's face and lick Big Sister's, bounce, bark, and sleep (a lot). The lively gouache paintings in large flat areas of color have a retro look, somewhat reminiscent of Lane Smith's work in The Happy Hocky Family! (Viking, 1993) or Yaccarino's illustrations for Laura Godwin's Little White Dog (Hyperion, 1998). Besides the circles made by the dachshunds, there are lots of other shapes to pick out in the pictures. Fun for the youngest dog lovers.-Pam Gosner, formerly at Maplewood Memorial Library, NJ Copyright 1998 School Library Journal Reviews