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Thursday, January 22, 2009

What's In a Title?

Okay, look at the cover of this book. My Big Dog, what's it about? If you said a dog, you would be only partially right. In fact, the dog is a very minor character in this book. We see the dog a lot, and the dog moves the story along -- well, sort of -- but the story could just as easily have been called, MERL, ONE ABSOLUTELY TERRIFIC, FABULOUS, PERFECT CAT or I AM MERL THE GREAT, DO YOU REALLY EXPECT ME TO LIVE WITH THAT?.
My Big Dog is about Merl, a tabby cat who rules the roost, that is until a sloppy, dopey, gangly golden retriever puppy invades Merl's space. When Merl cannot take one more nasty dog kiss, he decides to take drastic action -- Merl moves out. Life outside of the house where Merl has My dish. My sofa. My chair. My mouse. My bed is not so good; and in the end, it is the dog (whose tag reads Violet") who rescues Merl and brings him home.
My Big Dog is about friendship, tolerance and compromise. The illustrations in My Big Dog are so much fun to look at, you will want to look at each one for a long time before reading any of the text. This is truly one of my very favorite books. When my son Max was little he would beg me NOT to read My Big Dog again because it was the only book that I wanted to read.

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