While I’ll miss them coming to my store, I did not miss their gem of a book!

Good Rosie is the latest picture book by author Kate DiCamillo and illustrator Harry Bliss. It is an interesting take on a new situation scenario where the child (or in this case, dog) is lonely and would like to make friends but is nervous about making these new friends. This new situation could because the child/dog is going to a new school, it is their first day of school or they are going to the child/dog park.

 

While you can see the illustrations are in the vein of Harry Bliss’s illustrations they are also not as “Bliss-like” as usual. This helps make Good Rosie book less like his classic humorous stories (Diary of a Worm by Doreen Cronin) and more of a softly served story about being brave and trying to make friends. Yet, there is humor to the art as well as the text.

 

The characters, Rosie and the other dogs, have very typical kid personality: There is the “big awkward one” (Maurice) and the “overly hyper one” (Fifi) and the “shy one” (Rosie). They all want to play and make friends, but none of them are sure how. Until, of course, they figure out how to do this. Not without a few bumps, slobber and a couple shiny stones going missing. This book is a good book to read to the child starting any new adventure, who loves dogs or just really likes good stories.

 

Bliss and DiCamillo have also collaborated with each other on the picture book Louise, the Adventures of a Chicken.