Mr. Krup’s Pup

This ironic portrait of pale-skinned Mr. Krup and his self-involved dog, Marble, opens as Mr. Krup, having just finished cooking a pork chop (“for just the right amount of time on both sides”) finds his plate empty. After licking her paws and reclining on the sofa, Marble whines, “Why can’t I ever have a home-cooked meal?” Chastened, Mr. Krup fries up some kibble, but Marble waves it away: “I’m full.... Absolutely stuffed.” That night, after Marble gazes out the window and says, “I like the moon,” Mr. Krup promptly builds a rocket ship in the garden and blasts off. The moon vanishes, seeming to fall “at rocket speed straight down toward Earth,” and Mr. Krup offers the pale, delicate ball to Marble the following morning, “because you love it so much!” Marble is pleased, sort of. Bone-dry prose (“It was a perfectly ordinary, everyday moon,” Marble thinks about her gift) and expressive, angular figures by Lindström (I Do Not Like Water) capture this work’s contemptuous yet somehow lovable antihero, her devoted human, and their shared life in a narrative whose beats feel like the start of an ongoing series. Ages 4–8. (Dec.)