Dogger [Paperback]

Shirley Hughes (Author)

Book Description

Age Level: 4 and up | Grade Level: P and up

An enduring classic about how a little boy's stuffed dog is lost and found again, first published in the United States as David and Dog.

Editorial Reviews

Review

"A delightful story about a boy who loses his favorite toy—a worn old dog—then discovers him for sale at his school fete."  —Financial Times

"Shirley Hughes is a national treasure."  —Philip Pullman, author, His Dark Materials series

"This warm-hearted slice of real life is as good as any of the Alfie books . . . Hughes's trademark illustrations capture, as always, the homey details of family life in a neighborhood where the kindness of others plays a large part in everyday events."  —Kirkus Reviews

--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

About the Author

Shirley Hughes was trained at Liverpool Art School and at the Ruskin School of Art, Oxford. She illustrated many books by other authors before she started to write her own picture books. Her own family, two sons and a daughter, were very young then and she learned the craft of storytelling mostly by reading to them. Her books have won many awards and are published in Europe, China, Japan, and the Far East, as well as Australia, Canada, the U. K., and the U. S. A. She travels widely, talking to and drawing for children in schools and libraries as well as at adult conventions.

Shirley is married to an architect, now retired, and they have lived in the same family house, overlooking a London square garden, for more than forty years. They have, to date, six grandchildren who keep them on their toes.In Her Own Words...

"I grew up in a nice, quiet, well-behaved suburb of Liverpool. But our uneventful lives were rudely interrupted by the outbreak of World War II. Wewent to school carrrying gas masks, did air-raid shelter drills, saved Up mountains of scrap metal, and attempted to knit Mufflers for the troops. (Mine were very long; I never quite got the hang of casting off.)I slept under the stairs (hiring the winter of the big blitz, when we saw the sky over Liverpool lit by searchlights, tracer bullets, and Fires from the burning docks.

"All this may sound very exciting, But the problem with wartime is that when it's not frightening, it's deadly dull. You can't go on holiday, the grown-ups are too harassed and exhausted to pay much attention to amusements, and every nice kind of food is scarce. I recall, on a rare trip to the seaside (the beach was out of bounds, full of barbed wire and concrete gun emplacements), gazing at a longempty slot machine which had held chocolate bars and now seemed like a rusting icon from another world.

"Nevertheless, we managed to have a good time. We drew a lot, read and wrote stories, and got up magazines. (Mine was called, rather unoriginally, 'Girl's Own.) We acted plays, dressed in homemade costumes, to any audience we could press into service, cats included. Later, we became hopelessly stageand movie-struck. I think that by accident I had an ideal childhood for an illustrator. In a pre-televisual age, our Sunday afternoon outings, if we were lucky, were to Liverpool Art Gallery, which was cram-full of Victorian an narrative paintings with titles like 'The Hopeless Dawn,' 'Too Late!,' and 'When Did You Last See Your Father?' Tremendous stuff, and it fueled my lifelong conviction that stories and pictures belong together. I think most children probably feel the same.

"With me, drawing and painting stuck. I was never much good at anything else, so I went on doing them. Writing was a secret thing, kept well under wraps. When I emerged from art school, I wrote to a distinguished typographer saying I wanted to illustrate children's books. He wrote back saying that this was impossible 'except as an adjunct to teaching or matrimony.' All the same, I was determined to do it.

"When I think of an idea for a story, it always starts with a very strong image in my head, usually of a child doing something. With picture books, the words are unthinkable without the images-the two develop together, like a film. Alfie first made his appearance running up the street ahead of his mum, who came trundling behind with the shopping and his baby sister, Annie Rose, in the buggy. I knew from the first moment I reached for a pencil to get down a rough drawing of him that he was positively pink in the face with determination to get into the action. A lot has happened to him-and to mesince. He is a very ordinary little boy, a kind of fouryear-old Everyman just beginning to come to grips with the complexities of life. Now, rather to my amazement, well over two million Alfie books have been sold worldwide. But I still relate back to that rapid sketch done in a state of high excitement, which is where it all began."

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 4 and up
  
• Paperback: 32 pages
• Publisher: HarperTrophy (April 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 068811704X
• ISBN-13: 978-0688117047
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 0.2 x 0.1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (24 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,988,985 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Repeat after me. " I must buy Dogger . I must buy Dogger.", December 15, 2003

By 

J. ARNDT "arndthome2" (Oxford, MI) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Dogger (Paperback)

I have given over 15 copies of Dogger to friends and family when they have an arrival of a second child. Every one of them...every.one.of.them has loved it and weeks/months/years later, I still get glowing feedback on this book.

The way the older child (Bella) helps out her little brother (Dave) when he looses Dogger makes me and anyone I've ever given the story to sniffle at the beauty and kindness of text and illustrations.

Face it, when you were little and you miss placed your favorite toy/lovey, you basically went to DEFCON 5 alert status and nothing was right until your lovey was found. Now as a parent, you know if your child loses their lovey, nothing in your house will be settled until it is found and you would do anything ( beg, bribe and possibly liquidate your IRA to make your child happy (and sleep through the night) again. Bella is every mother's heroine.

She teaches the selfless act of helping and giving better than I ever could.

This book is getting harder to find, so buy it right now to help keep it in print. I need more copies for the next round of friends having children.

8 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars One of my favourite children's book !, April 10, 1998

By 

Kali "bengaligirl" (United Kingdom) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dogger (Paperback)

I read dogger to my friend's children many years ago. To this day it remains a firm favourite with me, I even bought a copy for my nephew before he was born ! The pictures are bright and colourful, the text easy for the children to follow but most of all it is fun to read.

Dogger is tops in my opinion, and I have to confess I read it myself whenever I am feeling down ! Shirley Hughes puts the child back in me and for that I thank her most heartedly.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This book is special, October 15, 2002

By 

JessA (Michigan, United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Dogger (Paperback)

I love Shirley Hughes, her illustrations are realistic and detailed enough to allow plenty to pore over. But the story is what shines in this book. David loses his "dogger" and Bella, his sister, helps him get it back. Very few children books model the kind, caring side of a sibling relationship. This one shows kids how a good family can help each other out. I, too, get a tear in my eye every time I read it and my children ask for it again and again. It is in no way sappy or sentimental, it simply rings true. You will not go wrong with this book, and if you have more than one child--it's a must!