Holy Dot Day, Batman!

If you managed to read the whole title of this post, you know we have a lot on the agenda for today!  And it all has to do with dots – either directly or in a more roundabout way 🙂

We’ll start with Perfect Picture Books, which I like to put on top so it’s easy to find when people click over from the master list.  I’ve chosen a book about a dog with spots… which are a lot like dots.

Next up will be my Dot for International Dot Day.

Finally, just when you think you can’t bear the suspense for another second, I will announce the winner of the Summer Send-Off Contest… before you go dotty!  (OK.  That was a reach :))

Ready? Set. GO!

Harry The Dirty Dog
Written By: Gene Zion
Illustrated By: Margaret Bloy Graham
Harper & Row, 1956, Fiction

Suitable For: ages 3-8

Themes/Topics: bath time, behavior (rebelliousness), facing consequences, problem solving, animals (dogs)
Opening: “Harry was a white dog with black spots who liked everything, except… getting a bath.  So one day when he heard the water running in the tub, he took the scrubbing brush… and buried it in the back yard.”

Brief Synopsis:  Harry doesn’t want a bath, so he hides the scrubbing brush and runs away.  All day long he plays happily, getting dirtier and dirtier, until finally, when he returns home, he’s so dirty his family doesn’t even recognize him.  What’s a dog to do?

Links To Resources: Harry The Dirty Dog Activities, Harry The Dirty Dog read by Betty White with pictures and tasteful animation (delightful!) as well as activities.

Why I Like This Book:  I not only like this book, I love it.  I loved it as a child.  I loved it with my children.  I love it as a writer because to me it’s a story that does everything right.  I think children (and adults :)) can relate to Harry’s story because we all have the urge to rebel from time to time but, like Harry, in the end what we want most is to be safe and loved… even if it means having a bath 🙂  The art is delightful, depicting Harry as lively and lovable, culminating in the sweet last page where Harry is curled up, happily asleep and dreaming, but leaving you to wonder whether he hid that scrubbing brush to make sure he was always clean so his family would always recognize him, or whether he hid it to avoid another bath any time soon 🙂

For the complete list of books with resources, please visit Perfect Picture Books.

Moving on, it’s time to celebrate International Dot Day!

Following the lead of Patricia Tilton on her wonderful blog Children’s Books Heal, I am joining in on International Dot Day, based on Peter H. Reynolds’ picture book The Dot.  The idea is to encourage people not to be intimidated and to create their own art in the form of a dot.  This year over half a million people will participate – primarily children in classrooms – but lots of other people as well.  Celebri-dots features dots created by well-known authors and illustrators.  (Dot Day is actually September 15, but I don’t post on Saturday so mine is going up today :))

I am not particularly artistic, but I had an idea for a dot.  The lovely and talented Beth Stilborn, whose computer skills leave mine in the dust, turned my idea into reality.  Thank you, Beth! 🙂

My dot is about love.

Love comes in many shapes and sizes.  For my daughter it comes in the shape of a polka-dot pony.  The pony is not fancy or highly bred.  She’s 14.1 hands* of fine, cinnamon chip fur, with a sturdy build, a velvet-soft nose, one brown eye and one blue, and though she might not appear to be anything special, she owns my daughter’s heart.  And it just so happens that two of those cinnamon dots that sprinkle her fur so liberally are heart shaped.  I am not making this up.  You can see one of them in the dot 🙂
* (for those who might not be horse people, a hand is  the unit of measure for horses and is equal to 4″. 14.1 hands means that the pony stands 57″ at the withers.)

Here is the special pony those dots and that heart belong to 🙂

my daughter counted the pony’s spots one day and in case you’re wondering, she has 791! 🙂

and the poem my daughter wrote about her: