Dear Hound

Gr 2—4—Alfie, a huge deerhound puppy with expressive ears, gets lost in the heath after he escapes from his dog-sitter. As Charlie and his mother wander around town looking for their pet and hanging up posters, Alfie searches for them. For months, owners and dog just miss each other, outside of the local restaurant (with an accessible trash bin) and in the moors. The animal's fur becomes more and more unkempt, and his face is matted and smeared with grease and dirt from his frequent Dumpster meals, making him look less and less like the picture on the posters. By the book's end, Alfie has run into a couple of improbable comrades, two unlikely villains, and finally, his family. This chapter book will appeal to fans of animal stories who have moved beyond Arnold Lobel's "Frog and Toad" titles (HarperCollins) but aren't quite ready for the length and complexity of E. B. White's Stuart Little. Murphy's expressive black-and-white line spot drawings (sometimes three to a spread) and deerhound notes ("GARDENING: They are great hole-diggers. Once they've started a hole, they don't stop till Australia") heighten the characterizations and add detail to the settings.—Lindsay Persohn, Crystal Lake Elementary, Lakeland, FL