If You Were a Dog

by Jamie A. Swenson, Chris Raschka (Illustrator)

Overview

If you could be any kind of animal, what would you be? Would you be a dog that goes ARRRROOOOOOO? Or maybe you would be a sharp-toothed dinosaur that can CHOMP, STOMP, ROAR! Perhaps you might want to be a hopping frog that goes BOING, BOING, RIBBET! But maybe you would want to be the best kind of animal of all: a child!

With joyful, impressionistic illustrations from Caldecott Medal–winning illustrator Chris Raschka and spare, rhythmic text from author Jamie A. Swenson that invites playful interaction, If You Were a Dog is the perfect read-aloud for your favorite little animal.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781466880900
Publisher:	Farrar, Straus and Giroux
Publication date:	09/30/2014
Sold by:	Macmillan
Format:	eBook
Pages:	40
File size:	105 MB
Note:	This product may take a few minutes to download.
Age Range:	3 - 6 Years

About the Author

Jamie A. Swenson works as an associate librarian and early literacy storyteller. She is also the author of Boom! Boom! Boom!, illustrated by David Walker. She lives in Janesville, Wisconsin.
Chris Raschka has written and/or illustrated over thirty books for children, including the Caldecott Medal-winning titles A Ball for Daisy and The Hello, Goodbye Window; as well as the Caldecott Honor book Yo! Yes? He lives in New York City.

Jamie A. Swenson received an M.F.A. in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Hamline University. She works as an associate librarian and early literacy storyteller. Jamie lives in Wisconsin with her family.
Chris Raschka has written and/or illustrated over thirty books for children, including the Caldecott Medal-winning titles A Ball for Daisy and The Hello, Goodbye Window; as well as the Caldecott Honor book Yo! Yes? He lives in New York City.

Editorial Reviews

07/07/2014
Being a dog is only one of the options in this exercise, which invites children to imagine life as all kinds of animals (including, at the end, dinosaurs). “If you were a dog, would you be a speedy-quick, lickety-sloppidy, scavenge-the-garbage, frisbee-catching, hot-dog-stealing, pillow-hogging, best-friend-ever sort of dog?” asks Swenson (Boom! Boom! Boom!). In lucid earth-tone and blue-green gouache panels, Raschka (A Ball for Daisy) pictures the active animals conjured by Swenson’s compound adjectives, nouns, and verbs. A cat is “sandpaper-licking, purr-purr-purr-purring, furry-stretching,” a fish might be a “coral-peeker” or “toe-nibbler,” and the set of bugs includes a bee “flower-keeper” and a “water-gliding-skimmer.” Story-time speakers may find themselves taking a nonlinear approach, backing up and repeating the queries to let listeners consider different actions and personalities. Swenson’s playful language and Raschka’s amiable cartoons lend a welcome unpredictability to this animal game. Ages 3–6. Author’s agent: Sean McCarthy, Sean McCarthy Literary Agency. Illustrator’s agent: Brenda Bowen, Sanford J. Greenburger Associates. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

Elegant, curious free verse and lush watercolors combine in a jaunty musing about the wonders of zoological pretending.” —Booklist

“Not so much a story as an imaginative survey of creatures great and small, this book presents a variety of animal just being themselves. Swenson's playful direct-address text is chock-full of sound effects and rollicking rhythms that beg to be read aloud.” —The Horn Book

“Raschka brings movement, energy, and personality to his vibrantly colored art . . . A fun way to get readers to use their imaginations in the natural world.” —School Library Journal

“Addressing both a winsome girl character and child readers, Swenson invites kids to speculate what sort of dog, cat, fish, bird, bug, frog and dinosaur they might want to be . . . Swenson's rhythmic cadences coupled with Raschka's wry, upbeat illustrations yield a title that's a cheery picker-upper.” —Kirkus Reviews

“Swenson's playful language and Raschka's amiable cartoons lend a welcome unpredictability to this animal game.” —Publisher's Weekly

From the Publisher

08/01/2014
PreS-Gr 2—This book's cover art, depicting a child thinking about a dog, is indicative of this playful journey through the animal world. Swenson asks readers to imagine themselves as several different animals, including a dinosaur, a bug, and a bird, and decide how that creature's qualities would appeal to them. For instance, would the child like to be a "sea-sparkler; ocean-swimming, coral-peeker;/wave-jumping,/flash-of-color; toe-nibbler,/faster-than-the-big-fish sort of fish?" After this fun list of descriptive words, Swenson comes back to another specific quality of that animal: "Would you splash in the surf? Some fish do." These lists help emphasize the diversity of species and the many ways these animals engage with their environment. The text has a rhyming, sing-song quality that makes it a great match for preschool storytimes. Raschka brings movement, energy, and personality to his vibrantly colored art. With just a few strokes, he makes a hissing cat puff up in anger at a nearby dog, ferocious and threatening. Readers can act out the characteristics of that cat or fish as the story is read. However, this could also be used in a classroom, both as a model for creative writing or as a beginning point for expanded study on a given species. A fun way to get readers to use their imaginations in the natural world.—Susan E. Murray, formerly at Glendale Public Library, AZ

School Library Journal

2014-07-16
Addressing both a winsome girl character and child readers, Swenson invites kids to speculate what sort of dog, cat, fish, bird, bug, frog and dinosaur they might want to be. She provides plenty of inventive images to get young imaginations flowing. "If you were a frog, / would you be a / giant-hopper, / ribbety-racer, / mighty jumper, / dragonfly-chaser, / lily-pad-bumper, / croaking-ballooner, / summer-night-crooner / sort of frog? // Would you spring and zing / and hop all day? / BOING, BOING, RIBBET! / Some frogs do." Raschka's pictures, in a palette of cool blue-green and warm orange-brown, playfully depict each animal's antics against rectangular watercolor washes. His creatures, simply composed of thick contours and blobs of color, nonetheless capture signature distinctions, such as a "yarn-tangling" cat's mesmerized eyes and the businesslike mien of a "trout-snatching" bird in flight. For the dinosaurs, he supplies a warty-looking T. Rex and a blue-striped tree-chomping herbivore, wild-eyed and slurpy-tongued. Swenson dials it down in the final pages, conspiratorially acknowledging that, while kids can't be any of those animals, they can move and sound like them—for a while. Then, "You can… // GIGGLE, GIGGLE, GIGGLE! / like a kid! // And that is the very best / sort of thing to be." Swenson's rhythmic cadences coupled with Raschka's wry, upbeat illustrations yield a title that's a cheery picker-upper. (Picture book. 3-6)

Kirkus Reviews