Book Review: Stick Dog Tries to Take the Donuts (apples, donuts, thinking, dogs)

Stick Dog Tries to Take the Donuts (Book 5 of 11), by Tom Watson (Harper, 2016, 208+ pages, $12.99HB, grades 3-7) 

 

The. Longest. ShortStory. Ever.

 

Written on lined paper like the tablets elementary school students use (or used, in the olden days, with a fat pencil), Stick Dog is unique. The best thing, in the eyes of parents and teachers, is the size of the words: some are long (and advanced) so your third grade reader will expand his vocabulary exponentially and include you in the reading often (to ask what a certain word means, after you have successfully figured out your child’s pronunciation attempts!)*

 

“. . . provide Stick Dog a little more time to figure out what his instincts were trying to tell him. He considered* this choice when something happened. And then something else happened.” (p. 123)

 

Five dog friends surviving on their own, their pictures as if drawn by a little kid. A Dalmatian named Stripes, a Karen doxey, a Mutt, Poo-Poo the Poodle, and Stick Dog, of course, their leader with brains. And the dogs are getting hungry and hungrier.

 

“There are nine more donuts in here,” Stick Dog said [to his four canine friends}. “That works out perfectly You all get two each.” (p. 145)

 

On their hunt for food like apples, they discover donuts! And Karen finds she loves, loves, loves coffee and what it does to her. Now, how to get more donuts and coffee. . . .

 

If you liked Hank Zipzer, you’ll like the Stick Dog books: Mutt stores things in his fur, Karen discovers she likes coffee, the reader will read about friendship and may, must may guess at the next exciting thing to happen to our group of canines!

 

“And that’s when Stick Dog got his idea. Do you know what it was? Sorry. I can’t tell you everything. I’ll just have to show you in the story.” (p. 124)

 

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Caveat: This book was purchased for review.

 

*verification, fierce, manipulated, etc.