This Old Dog

by Martha Brockenbrough, Gabriel Alborozo (Illustrator)

Overview

When so much of the world is new, you want to go slowly. to stop and enjoy everything; hills to roll down, perfect-sized rocks, trees that seem to whisper their thoughts. It's the same when you're much, much older, and every time 'round the seasons seems precious. Yet the folks in the middle (we know who we are) are always rushing, rushing, rushing. Appointments to make, trains to catch, places to be, FAST.

That's what makes the bond between old dog and the little girl so special. From the time she takes her first steps, old dog finds someone - at last! - who wants to go at the same pace he does. To walk with everywhere, through this wide, wonderful world.

A love song to the bond between young and old, this book will make you want to sit right down and read to someone you care about.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781646140732
Publisher:	Levine Querido
Publication date:	09/01/2020
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	40
File size:	57 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	4 - 7 Years

About the Author

Martha Brockenbrough wrote this book as a tribute to her own little girl and her precious old dog. She is a Kirkus Prize Finalist (for The Game of Love and Death) and a brilliant writer of picture books including Love, Santa and Cheerful Chick. She lives with her family, including two dogs and two cats, in Seattle, Washington.

Gabriel Alborozo is a dog lover, for sure, as you can see in these illustrations, the best of his career. His energetic line and beautiful sense of color have graced numerous picture books published around the world. This is his first for LQ. Gabe lives in Bexhill On Sea, East Sussex.

Editorial Reviews

06/29/2020

The titular pooch, gray and shaggy with small, friendly eyes, has reached an advanced age: “Thump-thump. Thump-thump. Old dog’s glad to see a new day,” writes Brockenbrough (Bigfoot Wants a Little Brother). But life has changed a lot since the canine’s people became parents: “The speed of life since the girl was born is fast fast fast, and old dog likes to take things slow.” His preoccupied owners lead him on walks that don’t accommodate his aches or his need to savor the day; he yearns for “a friend who looks at grass and sniffs and says, Let’s roll in this.” Alborozo (The Mouse and the Moon), working in fine-lined, warm-toned watercolor and ink, devotes an entire wordless spread to the dog standing in the garden alone, sad: “His heart thumps. His tail does not.” Then the girl starts walking and everything changes: she becomes the dog’s greatest devotee, and even loves rolling down a hill as much as he does. The authors can’t turn back the years for their senior hero, but they achieve something almost as good: they leave readers believing that the best is yet to come. Ages 4–7. Author’s agent: Barry Goldblatt, Barry Goldblatt Literary. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

A "lovely celebration of toddler-dog love..."-Booklist, starred review

From the Publisher

2020-07-28
Don’t let the title fool you: The dog does not die.

The title introduces the protagonist simply as “old dog,” a gray and shaggy old mutt whose “bones are sore” but whose “heart is strong.” Brockenbrough’s measured text emulates his pace, extending standing, yawning, stretching, eating, drinking, and assisting with “clean up” into separate, deliberate steps. But even though old dog is slow, “the speed of life since the girl was born is fast fast fast.” He endures much-too-quick walks that make him limp and dreams of a friend who’ll play with him. In one heart-rending spread, old dog stands alone in the garden next to a blue ball nobody has thrown for him: “His heart thumps. His tail does not.” But when that baby girl (White, like her parents) begins to toddle—“all the way to him”—it’s clear he’s found his friend, someone who “stops to smell the grass” and who knows the importance of “a just-right rock.” Alborozo’s delicately lined cartoons invest old dog with enormous personality, the blur of his tail thumping the only fast thing about him. His postures as he stretches and slurps, dolefully stands, and “drifts to sleep in a stripe of sun” are perfectly doggish. Brockenbrough likewise captures his essence in her meticulously trimmed text. Old dog is never named, and the consistent omission of an article before “old dog” is both universalizing and sweetly particular.

As comfortable as an old dog snoring. (Picture book. 4-8)

Kirkus Reviews