Mad Dog McGraw

Mad Dog McGraw is one mean dog. He barks like crazy, growls at trucks, snaps at clouds, and shows his teeth to the wind. His young neighbor, the spiky red-haired narrator of the story, always goes the other way when he sees Mad Dog coming. When the pitiless pooch still chases him home, the boy takes action. First he learns how to walk on stilts--but one of them gets caught in a crack. Then he tries to fly away with an umbrella--but the wind dies down. It isn't until he introduces a cat he calls Bait to Mad Dog--with surprising results--that our hero begins to comprehend what this tooth-gnashing, snapping, yelping canine really wants.

Lydia Monks's paint and color montage illustrations are quirky and deliberately flat-looking, with photographic bits of real denim, leaves, leopard-print, and lettering blended into the wonderful paintings. Mad Dog's tail is nothing more than a wiry bent line, and on each page, the spot around his eye has a different white-on-black newsprint fragment. For every dog lover, there's another person who hates and fears man's best friend. Thanks to Myron Uhlberg and Monks, the world need not seem a dangerous, fang-ridden place anymore--Mad Dog McGraw is a sweet pup at heart, longing only for a playmate and a little affection. (Ages 4 to 7) --Emilie Coulter