Dog for a Day - Softcover

Dick Gackenback wrote and illustrated his first book for children in 1974 after giving up a highly successful career as a creative director with a major department store. Since then, he has published more than 70 titles treasured by young readers. He lives in Pennsylvania.

Grade 1-3 Gackenbach employs the ``ol' switcheroo'' plot this time. Sidney, a second-grade genius inventor, constructs a machine that can change an item into something else. After some successful experimenting, including changing his sister into a lamp and back again, Sidney decides to change himself into his dog, Wally, and vice versa. The events that follow are played strictly for laughs. The canine Sidney is refused a ride on the school bus and is not allowed to play baseball with his friends because he has fleas. Meanwhile, at home, Wally, in Sidney's body, is chastised for sleeping on the dog's pillow, for eating dog food, and for not going to school. After narrowly escaping from the dogcatcher, Sidney races home to change himself and Wally back to their original forms, exclaiming, ``Sometimes, things are better left the way they are.'' The distinctive Gackenbach illustrations, solid, bold, vigorous, and in full color, lend more appropriate silliness to the text. A great choice for reading aloudand one sure to circulate. This story can be followed by Steig's more sophisticated Sylvester and the Magic Pebble (Windmill, 1969) for the same theme. Hayden Atwood, Cape Elizabeth Middle School , Maine
Copyright 1987 Reed Business Information, Inc.