Dog Breath!: Horrible Trouble with Hally Tosis

It could be said that Pilkey (Kat Kong; the Dragon books) never let a good story go unPUNished. From its open-mouthed mutt to its put-upon family to its climactic burglary scene, this latest entry might have been modeled on Susan Meddaugh's Martha Speaks. But Pilkey's silly tales forage unabashedly for lowbrow laughs, and his aim is usually accurate, even if adults more than kids will catch these halitosis jokes. Here, ``a dog named Hally, who lived with the Tosis family,'' emits green puffs of breath so toxic they knock Grandma Tosis out of her chair. When the Tosis parents put their putrid pet up for adoption, the Tosis kids try to save Hally: they bring her to a site with a ``breathtaking view''; to a movie (starring ``Perry O'Donnel and Giner Vitus'') said to leave audiences ``breathless''; and to a roller coaster so fast it makes riders lose their breath-to no avail. Yet a glimpse of a headline on a newspaper (called The Daily Foreshadow) and a wanted poster showing two robbers presage a happy ending: the villains visit the Tosis home and suffer the odiferous consequences. Pilkey's punchy art, characterized by heavy black outlines and bold colors, matches the clowning quality of the text (the copyright page, tellingly, lists Pilkey's preferred media as ``acrylics, watercolors, pencils, magic markers, and Dijon mustard''). Guaranteed to ward off smellancholy. Ages 4-8. (Oct.)