cover image Eddie and Dog

Eddie and Dog

Alison Brown. Capstone, $14.95 (32p) ISBN 978-1-62370-114-7

A redheaded boy named Eddie longs for adventure in this sweetly absurd story. After Eddie spots a scruffy white dog on the baggage carousel at the airport, the two strike up a fast friendship: “Together they hunted for crocodiles... and sailed the seven seas,” writes Brown, showing them poking at a storm drain with a stick and setting sail in a cardboard box marked with a skull and crossbones. Eddie’s mother insists that their apartment building can’t accommodate a dog: “So he had to go.” The boy’s disappointment is short-lived: the dog comes roaring back on a scooter, and subsequent attempts to get rid of the dog are just as futile. This isn’t the kind of story in which it pays to ask “Why?” Why is Eddie hanging out at the airport by himself? Why doesn’t the dog get a name? Why are they playing with boxes and sticks when the dog has access to an open-cockpit plane? It’s better to ask “Why not?” and enjoy the dog’s comical persistence and the off-the-wall solution that allows him to stay with Eddie. Ages 3–7. (Feb.)