Kirkus
Copyright © Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Ten words may be all it takes to convince some young children to try reading. An expressive dog, locked inside on a sunny day, is increasingly frustrated by its confinement. Each sentence begins: "I see a." "Cat," "bird," "fly," "squirrel," "mice," "bee," and so on complete the sentence on successive subsequent double-page spreads. Almost all the action takes place on the other side of a sliding-glass door. Only the fly is inside, buzzing annoyingly around the dog in four vignettes. When a brown-skinned child appears, the dog is clearly delighted. Freed at last, the dog immediately chases the squirrel up a tree. Despite its limited vocabulary, Meisel's simple story is surprisingly satisfying. New readers will fill in the missing details from clues in the uncluttered illustrations, several spreads of which are completely wordless. For example, the child is first shown with a backpackjust returning home from school, perhaps? Even before the title page, a wordless frontmatter sequence begins the story. On the title page the dog's eyes clearly signal displeasure at having to come inside. "Squirrel," the hardest of the 10 words used, appears three times, providing practice while also making it clear that the squirrel is dog's chief antagonist. The repeated sentence structure helps build confidence and fosters reading fluency. Another successful addition to the I Like to Read series: "I see a winner!" (Early reader. 4-8) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Horn Book
(c) Copyright The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

A dog waits at home by looking outside at a series of animals through a sliding-glass door. Finally, the dog's boy arrives and the dog is free to chase the one animal he's repeatedly barked at: a squirrel. Each double-page spread contains at most one sentence, a boon to new readers. Expressive watercolor, acrylic, and pencil illustrations amusingly capture the dog's alternating boredom and excitement. (c) Copyright 2018. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.