Review by Pam Marr Rybinski
This twenty-seven or so page book is part of the “I Can Read!” series. The illustrations are fantastically enticing and compose the bulk of the book. There are just enough words to tempt a new reader into moving forward. The fact that he or she will learn about family members “yelling . . . Bad dog, Marley” turns me completely off. After “Bad dog, Marley” runs away, there is a friendly baker who sees Marley as a “good dog” and wishes he could keep him . . . but, alas, he’s an honest man who reads Marley’s tag and turns him back to the dog-ignorant yelling family. The book is reportedly “based on the bestselling books of John Grogan.” That may be the reason for its contents. However, I say softly, not yelling, “Bad book” for children to learn about living with dogs.
