Sunday, March 11, 2012

#11


Little Dog and Duncan
Poems by Kristine O’Connell George
Illustrations by June Otani
Clarion Books
2002
40 pages

Poetry


“Little Dog and Duncan saw me coming with the brush…
The juniper bush has grown a tail.”

I chose this book because I enjoy reading poetry, especially about animals or nature. My RITE child also likes reading about dogs. This book is full of poems about Little Dog and Duncan. The poems are in the order of occurrence during the day. The first poem is about the big news that Little Dog gets; he is having a visitor. He greets his visitor, Duncan, and brings his bags inside. Duncan gets homesick, but Little Dog sits by the door with him and helps him mope. The girl gives Duncan a hug, a pat, and a cookie. Little Dog gets the same. The two dogs play together throughout the afternoon, and Duncan goes home at the end of the day.
This wrap-around cover has Little Dog and Duncan lying in the grass, and Duncan’s huge body continues to the back of the book. The illustrations in this book are vignettes. June Otani did a fantastic job using watercolor paints to illustrate the two dogs. The paintings have very distinct lines, showing the detail of the dogs’ hair and the texture of the grass. Some of the illustrations seem to get lost in the gutter of the book.
This book would be appropriate for young children to read. It would be a great book to use to introduce poetry. You could tell students that poetry doesn’t always have to rhyme and let them read poems aloud from the book. The poetry in this book is free verse, so students could write their own similar poem about a topic of their choice. If the whole class had a similar topic to write about, the teacher could collect all of the poems and make them into a book to keep in the classroom.

           
Little Dog and Duncan has not been awarded any medals or honors. I enjoyed reading the poems in this book, and I’m sure any other dog lover would as well.

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