Publishers Weekly
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.)
From the Publisher
A "lovely celebration of toddler-dog love..."-Booklist, starred review
Kirkus Reviews
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)
