A Boy, His Dog, and the Sea

This dreamy tale by former U.K. children’s laureate Browne starts in a minor key as young Danny, feeling “a little sad and bored” while his brother Mick is out with friends, is encouraged by their busy mother to take the pale-skinned family’s dog Scruff for a walk on the beach. “Keep your eyes open,” she says. “You never know what you might see.” As Danny walks glumly along, hunched over, everything around him seems glum, too—the gray skies, the oddly human expressions of vacant beach huts, the corvid inexplicably holding a balloon in its beak. Then Danny persuades Scruff to fetch a stick thrown into the water, something Scruff has never done before. When Danny happens on a group of people onshore gesturing at something in the distance, he sees a waving figure and sends Scruff out to fetch it, with startling, dramatic results. A rescue tale with a cracking finale, it’s also a story about learning to perceive, a theme pursued both in the story’s narrative thread and in its delicately conceived and executed watercolor illustrations, in which elusive forms—animals, faces, and more—shift and change. Background characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Ages 3–7. (June)