Bone Dog

Starred review from May 2, 2011
Caldecott Medalist Rohmann's (My Friend Rabbit) friendly figures and soft, autumnal colors give this spooky story an overlay of tranquility. Ella is Gus's dog, but she's aging: "I'm an old dog," she tells him, "and I won't be around much longer." Yet she promises to stay near him always, and "a promise made under a full moon cannot be broken." After she dies, Gus, dressed as a skeleton for Halloween, is threatened by a half-dozen ghoulish graveyard skeletons: "A boy!" "And he's alive!" "And you know what that means?" "Bone appétit!!" Ella, now just a dog skeleton, shows up just in time to rescue him. It's an offbeat mixture of humor and sadness: in an arresting image, Gus looks incredibly alone as he stands in the middle of an empty graveyard, clutching his Halloween candy; the skeletons' scariness is tempered by their kooky poses and glib lines. Yet more than the skeletons, it's Gus's grief that's vanquished. Some may find the sight of Ella as a skeleton off-putting; others will find comfort in the idea that a dog's loyalty transcends death. Ages 4â8.

August 1, 2011

Caldecott Medalist Rohmann employs a similar artistic style to his award-winning My Friend Rabbit's as he depicts a young boy's journey through grief by way of a spooky graveyard on Halloween.

Beloved dog Ella tells Gus under a full moon, "I'm an old dog and won't be around much longer. But no matter what happens, I'll always be with you." Once Ella is gone, Gus mopes. On Halloween he reluctantly goes trick-or-treating, costumed as a skeleton. Heading back home he cuts through the graveyard. Here Rohmann's hues darken, and Gus looks small and utterly alone. In a quietly dramatic page-turn, Gus is suddenly surrounded by a group of skeletons. Their goofy behavior and wisecracking taunts turn sinister, and soon they close in. The ghost of Ella comes to the rescue, yet she alone cannot save him. "Together will all their might..., boy and dog howled into the night." A pack of dogs arrives to vanquish the bony bullies in an offstage battle readers see only in hilarious denouement. Gus and Ella cuddle once again. He asks, "Will I see you again?" Ella answers, "A promise made under a full moon cannot be broken." Here the image of ghostly Ella and skeleton-clad Gus echoes the earlier picture of the two.

Sometimes scary, often funny and ultimately heartwarming, Rohmann's tale successfully balances a tight text full of tough emotions with clear images of an everlasting friendship. (Picture book. 4-8)

(COPYRIGHT (2011) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from July 1, 2011

PreS-Gr 2-Employing the printmaking techniques that earned him a Caldecott Award for My Friend Rabbit (Roaring Brook, 2002), Rohmann continues to mine the depths of friendship, this time between a boy and his dog. Readers first encounter Gus and Ella frolicking with a pack of dogs; then they are framed against a low-hanging moon having a heart-to-heart. Ella explains that due to her age she "won't be around much longer. But...I'll always be with you." Furthermore, "A promise made under a full moon cannot be broken." The dog's death occurs offstage; ensuing panels depict the protagonist's dispirited movements during daily activities, his heart heavy with loss. An encounter on Halloween night forces Gus to grapple with his new reality. Walking through a graveyard in his skeleton costume, he is surrounded by the real deal. Just as things are looking grim, a skeletal Ella and a pack of flesh-and-blood canines save the day. As in Rabbit, black borders contain the action and create a cinematic distance. The green landscape and horizon line disappear in the climactic scenes, with the action playing out against a deep blue sky or a moonlit white background, furthering the sense of a movie in motion. Rohmann's bony wordplay lightens the tension, and a controlled palette provides a calming continuity, as does a conclusion that mirrors the beginning (with the exception of some ecstatic dogs trotting home with new bones). Sad, spooky, and comforting by turns, this deceptively simple approach to the loss of a pet quickens and gladdens the heart.-Wendy Lukehart, Washington DC Public Library

Copyright 2011 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2011
Preschool-G Events are cunningly foreshadowed through a translucent overlay on the title page: an illustration of a dog that, when the overlay is turned, remains happy and alertexcept now it is but bones. Yes, the story begins sadly, as Gus and his elderly dog, Ella, sit beneath the moonlight, with Ella admitting that she won't be around much longer, yet will always be with him: A promise made under a full moon cannot be broken. Soon Ella is gone, and Gus begrudgingly dresses as a skeleton for trick-or-treating. A shortcut through the graveyard results in being surrounded by nefarious, real-life skeletons. But it's ghost Ella to the rescue, howling so as to summon a legion of living dogs to chase down the skeletons. Thick-lined illustrations filled with autumn colors give this a true Halloween feel and are especially impressive during three wordless two-page spreads in which the skeletons run, the dogs give chase, and a single mutt struts back, bone in mouth. Several moments border on frightening, but this is ultimately a tender look at love's never-ending reach.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)

January 1, 2012
Gus, trick-or-treating past a graveyard dressed as a skeleton, has a secret weapon against the real skeletons that taunt him: the ghost of his dog Ella. Rohmann's relief prints, with forceful black lines and high contrast, accentuate the weight of the story's emotion--Gus's grief after Ella dies as well as the poignancy of boy and dog's fleeting moonlit reunion.

(Copyright 2012 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from July 1, 2011
Trick-or-treating past a graveyard dressed as a skeleton is always a risky move. But this Halloween, when real skeletons come out to taunt and possibly eat Gus, he has a secret weapon: the ghost of his dog Ella. The forceful black lines and high contrast of Rohmann's relief prints, the same technique he used in his Caldecott-winning My Friend Rabbit, give his potentially ethereal characters pleasing solidity. They also accentuate the weight of the story's emotion -- Gus's grief after Ella dies as well as the poignancy of boy and dog's fleeting moonlit reunion. The skeletons get all the corny lines, e.g., "You've got guts kid...but not for long!" Yet their silliness doesn't detract from the book's moving scenes, as when Ella, before she dies, sits outside with Gus one night, promising to be with him "no matter what happens" because "a promise made under a full moon cannot be broken." She repeats this vow in the end, and it's not creepy at all to see her skeletal frame seated next to the boy she loves, his hand patting her back, her bony tail wagging. christine m. heppermann

(Copyright 2011 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)