When Molly Drew Dogs

A school-aged girl, Molly, starts thinking about a pack of dogs, and they become restless in her brain, “begging to be let out”. She begins to draw dogs everywhere. Her grandmother, teacher, and tutor have no patience for her drawings or new obsession with dogs. At tutoring, Molly becomes frustrated because the “dogs were causing so much trouble. But she couldn’t erase them, even if she wanted to.” She runs away and finds shelter from the rain in an old garden shed. She draws food and jackets for the dogs, and the dogs keep her company overnight. In the middle of the night, Molly hears growling, barking, and howling. In the morning, her teacher finds her in the shed and tells her that there were robbers in the neighborhood that night but the robbers were scared off by a pack of dogs wearing coats. The teacher brings Molly home, and the book ends with Molly showing her illustrations of the dogs to her classmates, and it turns out her teacher “wasn’t allergic to dogs after all”.

I appreciate books for children that try to tap into children’s emotions, and I think Kerbel was trying to make the dogs a metaphor for anxiety and accepting oneself. However, When Molly Drew Dogs is a problematic text, and I have a number of concerns about the book. First, educational professionals may not appreciate the portrayal of the teacher and tutor in this book; the teacher and tutor do not like Molly’s drawings and lose patience with her. I cannot see a teacher telling a student, “It’s time to get serious, Molly” and “Drawing is only for art class.” Molly also runs away from school. She is not found until the next day, and she is found in a garden shed by her teacher (not the police or her parents). There are no consequences or any discussion about the fact that she ran away from school. Running away from problems and emotions may not be the message we want to send to children. I also did not feel a connection with the illustrations. Perhaps the sketch style of the pictures is to mirror Molly’s drawings of the dogs, but the illustrations feel very childlike, and the lack of detail in Molly’s face make it difficult to have empathy for Molly.

On the inside dust jacket of the book, it states that When Molly Drew Dogs is inspired by a Japanese folk tale, “The Boy Who Drew Cats”. When I read about that original tale, I understand what Kerbel was trying to do with When Molly Drew Dogs, but, in the end, it just does not work well. Too much of the original tale was changed or does not apply for it to translate into a modern day tale with similar themes and message.