Shoe Dog

McDonald, M., & Tillotson, K. (2014). Shoe Dog. London: Simon & Schuster.

Summary:

Shoe Dog loves to chew…well, shoes! But when his choice of chewables leads to trouble, a feline friend has a purr-fect solution.

Shoe Dog likes to chew. And chew and chew. But he doesn’t chew a boring old bone. Not a squeaky old toy. Not a smelly old sock. Nope. Shoe Dogs chews…well, take a guess!
Chewing shoes poses a problem, however, and Shoe Dog needs help to solve it. Good thing there’s...Shoe Cat!
With illustrations so lively that Shoe Dog nearly scurries off the page, this is an irresistibly adorable read-aloud ideal for pet owners and animal lovers alike.

Age level appropriate for this book: Kindergarten- 3^rd Grade

Justification: This book is engaging and adorable for children. Shoe Dog is great for use in the classroom. It goes well with the Kentucky standard RL.3.3 (Describe characters in a story, including but not limited to their traits, motivations, actions or feelings, and how they affect the plot.) Some of the students might be able to relate to the text if they have dogs at home. In the classroom, students could describe how the dog feels versus how his owner feels about him chewing up her shoes. Shoe Dog is also full of adjectives so this would be a great book to use when practicing adjectives in the classroom. Students could choose a few sentences out of the book and switch the adjectives with other adjectives. This would help students practice using adjectives in sentences.  

Review:

An irrepressible dog can’t resist falling into the same type of mischief over and over again, until something surprising changes his pattern.

This small, wiggly pup bounces upward as a silhouetted woman enters the animal shelter. He longs for a home “warm as soup / and cozy as pie,” full of nose kisses and tummy rubs. And oh, how exciting—the woman takes him home! “That very day, / Shoe Dog chewed through / five high heels, / four flip-flops, / three sneakers, / two boots, / one wing tip.” Scolding—“ ‘BAD DOG!’ / She, Herself said”—and punishment—no petting or access to the Big Bed—see him lying forlornly in a gray-blue space, subdued. But each time new shoes arrive, he tracks down and rips into the fresh box, chomping every shoe with gusto. Consequences ratchet up mildly, but Shoe Dog never learns impulse control as such; instead, unexpectedly, he meets a shoe he’d never, ever chew. Finally he’s welcome “on the Big Bed / in the Land of Upstairs,” curling up blissfully with his new shoe-love. Tillotson uses thick black lines for Shoe Dog’s scribbly, coiled-spring body, smudging charcoal inside his shape to give him substance; scraps of pink and beige mark his pointy ears and muzzle. Motion lines show how he scampers and bounds. The visual angle varies, and shoe-box tissue paper flies through the air.

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