Where Bone?

When readers first meet Balthazar, the canine protagonist of this sparky debut, he’s having sweet dreams (surfing a whale’s spout, galloping on a sheep around Saturn’s rings), accompanied by his beloved bone. But when he wakes up, the bone is gone, propelling him on a frantic, relentless search. “Gonna getcha bone,” he says, before tearing up the garden (“Muck have bone? No bone”), the kitchen and living room (“Yum yums NO BONE”), and most spectacularly, in both a visual and a catastrophic sense, the bathroom (“Bone take swimmies?”). There, he manages to turn on the sink and bathtub faucets and flood the entire house. Moss—who draws the pudgy, dazed Balthazar in devil-may-care washes of brown watercolor (her work has touches of Ralph Steadman in it)—is in her aquatic element in these spreads, as the pooch is swept up in a tidal wave of blues, greens, and foamy whites. Sharp-eyed readers, of course, will have already noted that the bone is actually tucked into Balthazar’s pillow (“Home is where the bone is,” it reads). But they’ll be very happy to go along for the ride. Ages 4–8. Agent: Adria Goetz, Martin Literary Management. (Sept.) Correction: A previous version of this review misstated the creator's last name.