Digger Dog

When it comes to reaching a buried bone that’s giving off an irresistible scent, a dog’s gotta do what a dog’s gotta do. For Digger Dog, it takes ever-larger digging equipment, starting with a manual shovel and escalating to “the biggest digger he can find”: a massive red power shovel that “spits and snorts and rumbles and shakes and digs!” With the help of a mouse and a rabbit, who bring their own hardhats, the bone is finally retrieved, but also turns out to be the tip of a dinosaur skeleton iceberg. Bee (And the Cars Go...) and Johansson’s (Ten on the Bus) skit-like story both feels and looks slight; Digger Dog is a pretty pedestrian canine, and, with the exception of a polka-dot motif, the settings are perfunctory. But construction equipment–obsessed readers will probably find it pushes all the right buttons, especially since the repetition-driven story ends with a big finish in the form of two gatefolds: the first unfolds upward to pay tribute to the digger’s full size, and the second opens downward to reveal the T-Rex beneath the surface. Ages 3–7. (Apr.)