Dogs, Dogs, Dogs: I Love Them All

The full-colour, full-page cartoon format illustrations are described by rhyming couplets that exactly match the pictures. Almost every line starts with, “I love dogs…” and ends with some descriptions of appearance, such as furry, short-haired, red, brown, black, short, tall, fat, thin, and drooly. Other descriptions are about behaviours such as digging, chasing ducks, jumping high, and sitting at one’s feet. Lastly, some of the descriptions are just pure fun, such as riding a fire truck, balancing on a ball, and playing the violin.

Dogs, Dogs, Dogs: I Love Them All is a wonderful board book that will appeal to young pre and beginning readers. They will be able to follow the storyline because the illustrations capture the content of the text perfectly. After hearing the story once, pre-readers will be able to “read” the story themselves.

Dogs, Dogs, Dogs could be used by care-givers and kindergarten teachers in a variety of ways. It could be used as a model for storytelling. Young children could easily adapt the rhyming couplets to “I love….”. The story could be used to identify and classify words. It could also be used as springboard for discussions about family pets and their care and perhaps lead to the introduction of other books about dogs, both fiction and nonfiction.