A black-and-white spotted pooch who learns how to floss his teeth stars in Rotenberg's rather one-dimensional first book. "My dog Rodeo Pup is much smarter than he looks," begins the text on the left-hand white page, framed by a jagged cutout border, while a quick-brush painting of the frantic Rodeo Pup occupies the right. Other monotonous portraits follow, featuring the salt-and-pepper pup in the same body-stretch pose going either left or right, red tongue, red leash or red floss dangling from his mouth. Despite the narrator's boasting of his abilities ("Well. Father was amazed. Mother was speechless. My brother took a picture"), readers will likely be unimpressed by Rodeo's talents for unraveling fishnet stockings and using string for dental floss. Axiomatic captions that run along the top of the art spout advice to pet owners (e.g., "A dog's yard must be secure to keep him safe from harm"); they tend to diffuse the narrative rather than underscore it. Readers can get a peek at the pup by visiting his Web site (www. rodeopup.com), printed on the final page of the book. Ages 4-8.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From School Library Journal
PreSchool-K-Rodeo Pup's adventure consists of nipping at his young owner's fishnet tights while she's walking to school, getting his teeth stuck, unraveling the string, and taking it home to "floss" his teeth. The text ends with his Web site address and a shameless solicitation for e-mail. Each picture in this non-story includes a tip at the top of the frame such as, "Tell your dog when he is bad. He'll know better next time" or "Walking your dog on a leash will show him who's the boss." While the cover painting of a white pooch with black spots is appealing enough, Rotenberg uses basically the same image on practically every page. However, she does a nice job of depicting the narrator's red tights (later reduced to just string curling around the page) and of using lines and dots to add accents to the bright acrylic illustrations. Small children, especially dog owners, may get a kick out of Rodeo Pup's mild antics, imagining their own pets to be stars (he gets his picture in the paper), but anyone over six years old will quickly write off this trivial tale of a one-trick dog.
John Sigwald, Unger Memorial Library, Plainview, TX
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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