BOOK REVIEW: Puppy Ate My Shorts (The Gracie Series)

Title: Puppy Ate My Shorts (The Gracie Series)
Genre: Children’s Book
Print Length: 23 pages
Publisher: Inspirations by Grace LaJoy
Publication Date: October 13, 2017
Author: Grace LaJoy Henderson
Illustrator: Grace LaJoy Henderson
 
SYNOPSIS: One pair, two pair,red pair, blue pair.  A naughty little puppy takes a bite out of Gracie’s new shorts two times. But after hearing wise words from Father, Gracie makes a different decision the third time around.

EXTERIOR / COVER DESIGN: The cover illustration is intriguing and compliments the title. The image of the dog being latched on to a young girl’s shorts makes you want to open the book. The title makes you wonder if the dog really ate the young girl’s shorts.  

ILLUSTRATIONS: The illustrations were nice and seemed to have been created by the author. Some of the images appeared to be duplicated (the illustrations of the girl walking to her friend’s house), in which the author only switched the color of the girl’s shorts. It would have been easy for the author/illustrator to switch up the character’s pose a bit just to differentiate between the illustrations.  

REVIEW: Puppy Ate my Shorts is a cute story about a dog eating a young girl’s shorts. The young girl encounters the dog while she is walking to her friend’s house. After having her shorts eaten twice, she embarks on the journey to see her friend for the third time. During the third journey, the young girl thinks about the warning her father gives her and turns back to go home. There are also five questions at the end of the story that need to be answered. These questions are a great idea because it tests the reader’s knowledge of the story.
There was an underlying message in the story, which seemed to be based on listening to your parents and not making the same mistake multiple times. The lesson could have been more clear within the story by allowing the young girl to have a second road to take that would get her to the friend’s house. Having this type of decision making in the story would show young readers that there is more than likely a different route they could take when making a particular decision.

RATING: 4 out of 5 STARS

LINK:https://www.amazon.com/Puppy-Ate-My-Shorts-Gracie/dp/099871173X/ref=tmm_pap_swatch_0?_encoding=UTF8&qid=1522830200&sr=8-1