Don't Lick the Dog:

Making Friends With Dogs


by Wendy Wahman

This cute, quirky picture book looks like fun, but comes with good, solid information, too.

The bold, colourful pictures and rhyming texts make this super kid-friendly and make the lessons about how to approach dogs easy to digest. From safety notes about initial contact, though using body language to draw out a shy dog and how to pet a dog, right up to how to react to dog behaviour that you don't like, this picture book is well-pitched and right on cue.

For a kid who loves dogs and would like to know how to act around them, or for a child who is fearful but comes in contact with them and needs some guidance on how to manage their interactions, this book is a winner.

Daddy, Papa, and Me

by Leslea Newman, ill. Carol Thompson

Too often, books written with a point or a message or far too earnest, and favour the point above a good story or even a cute snapshot in time. This board book about living with two dads is a delightful exception.

Being a board book, it is slight, as length is necessarily limited in this format. Still, it is a cute look at a day of playing with parents that ends in their exhaustion. We've seen this outline with more conventional families, and this pair of dads is treated no differently, which is what makes it a real winner. The focus is on the loving, the cuteness, and the fun, and the fact that the parents are of the same sex is not even mentioned. It will be, after all, totally normal to another child of a same-sex family, and doesn't need explaining. It's just quite simply nice to have a book that reflects their family.

This is just about the ideal, if you ask me.