The circle dogs live in a big, square house with a big, square yard. See the dogs? See the circles? Mama calls them pooches. Papa calls them hounds. I'm a dog! says Big Sister. Baby is, too. And even the youngest reader will want to wiggle and bounce and dig through the day with the circle dogs....until it is time for bed. An inspired collaboration, a new take on simple shapes, a story to read again and again.
Bravo Henkes and Yaccarino!
Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly
Henkes, who spoke to an elementary-age audience in Owen and Lilly's Purple Plastic Purse, here gets down to basics with this lively description of a day in the life of two dachshunds. The tube-shaped dogs -- one rust-orange with black ears, the other vice versa (both have blue noses and collars) -- form circles while they are resting. At dawn, they uncurl and greet a mother, father, little girl and baby boy ("clink-clank,... clink./ Hear their tags?/ Mrooon, mro-o-o-o-on./ They stretch and stretch and moan and yawn"). The story follows a morning-to-evening sequence of mealtimes, playtimes and naptimes, and comes full-circle, as it were, with the dogs bedded down for the night. Henkes infuses even this simplest of texts with humor: at breakfast, "Papa drops his toast./ Oops! Where did it go?/ The circle dogs know." He balances full sentences with fragments, and punctuates the story with the everyday sounds of barking, crunching and doorbell-ringing. Yaccarino's (Goodnight, Mr. Night) opaque, geometric graphics and limited gouache palette complement the concise statements. Squares and rectangles form window views inside and outside the house, and hem in the fluid shapes of the dogs and people. Author and artist judiciously repeat imagery and phrases ("Mama calls them pooches. `Those pooches!' says Mama"); and the diversity of words and sentence structures ensure a book that runs circles around the usual primer.
Children's Literature - Debra Briatico
Perfect for bedtime reading, this clever book introduces young readers to two circle dogs that live in a big, square house. From beginning to end, this delightful book entertains and teaches important concepts such as colors and shapes. Kevin Henkes uses simple language to describe the daily routines of a family and their two lively dogs. When the alarm clock rings, the pooches wake up, dispense kisses, and run, jump and bounce their way through an exciting day filled with playing, eating and sleeping. Pet-loving families will enjoy this charming picture book.
School Library Journal
PreS-Gr 1-A love letter to dachshunds, called "circle dogs" because of their ability to form that shape with their bodies. The text is simple, almost primerlike, with lots of onomatopoetic words: "Circle dogs like circle snacks-crunch, crunch, crunch-right from your hand." The pooches play, dig holes (and get yelled at), sniff Baby's face and lick Big Sister's, bounce, bark, and sleep (a lot). The lively gouache paintings in large flat areas of color have a retro look, somewhat reminiscent of Lane Smith's work in The Happy Hocky Family! (Viking, 1993) or Yaccarino's illustrations for Laura Godwin's Little White Dog (Hyperion, 1998). Besides the circles made by the dachshunds, there are lots of other shapes to pick out in the pictures. Fun for the youngest dog lovers.-Pam Gosner, formerly at Maplewood Memorial Library, NJ
James McMullan
. . .[A]n evocative piece of writing that would be a joy to read aloud to a child. -- The New York Times Book Review
Kirkus Reviews
Shapes cavort in the form of circle dogs (long thin dachshunds that chase their tails, forming circles) that live in a big square house in this delightful book for the very young. Imitative of the early work of Margaret Wise Brown, this collaboration has the retro look, feel, and sound of her classic Noisy Book series. Yaccarino uses essentially the four-color palette of a few decades back, set against a creamy vanilla background, with a bolder, more graphic, and deliberately contemporary design that plays with the rearrangement of space to show circle dogs that clink-clank their tags and flip-flap their tails. Circle dogs dig circle holes and eat from circle bowls. They snap at the air, lick Big Sister's face, and sleep a lot in simple pictures that emphasize shape and form, with circles everywhere: the mouths of people, the tips of dog's noses, the bones of a steak, the dogs themselves. Henkes completes the goodnight tale with just the right amount of sounds for the sensory enjoyment of preschoolers. (Picture book. 2-4)
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