I Don't Want a Posh Dog!

Dodd (What Pet to Get? ) tours the world of canine temperaments and concludes that sweetest is best. A petite girl with a pert haircut and a flowered dress imagines herself the owner of various dogs, rejecting each in turn with cleverly turned verse: “I don't want a posh dog./ A blow-dry-when-washed dog,” she says, wielding a hair dryer at a haughty poodle with a rhinestone collar. As she's pulled off her feet by a racing greyhound, she says, “I don't want a speedy dog,” while on the next spread, a rotund dachshund goes to work on a hamburger and fries, as two others clamor for attention (“A greedy, pleady, needy dog”). The exaggerated characteristics and expressions of Dodd's dogs are giggle-inducing, while jaunty type and digitally manipulated areas of texture amp up the text's inherent energy and the dogs' personalities. When a wire-haired gray dog with floppy ears appears, joyfully circling around the girl, she reveals that she wants “a none-too-proud or loud dog,” cuddling the newcomer as the others roar past, “a know-me-in-the-crowd dog.” Plenty of fun for dog lovers. Ages 3–6. (June)