Smog the City Dog

by Adria Meserve

In this contemporary retelling of Aesop's fable "The Dog and His Shadow," Smog the city dog has, through his selfishness, lost his precious bag of snacks. He soon learns that the only way to save it is by working together with the other hungry animals. With playful illustrations, this delightful story is a fun read-aloud that makes the important lesson of sharing and cooperation easy for young children to swallow.

Genres: Picture Books

32 pages, Paperback

Published January 1, 2003

Reviews

[Misbah · Rating 2 out of 5]

Smog the dog is very hungry so he steals a bag of food. While trying to keep all the food for himself he accidentally drops it in the water. Alex the animals that he was selfishly trying to keep the food from help him pull it out of the water. They all enjoy the food together.

[Kristen Mcmahan · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought that this was such a fun, beautiful little book. The story follows a dog on his quest to find food in the big city. After he finds what he is looking for he loses it out of greed for more. Soon all the animals in the city are on a wild goose chase through a whirl of brightly colored buildings and streets trying to claim the bag of goods. After continuing the journey together and finally achieving the goal of retrieving the food, everyone realizes that it is much better to share the goodies together. After all a joint effort was required in such a big city.

The first thing that caught my attention when reading this book was the gorgeous and lively illustrations. All the animals and words seem to fly seamlessly through the winding streets of this undisclosed big city. The city itself is colorful and simplistic making it really entertaining to look through. The form of craft that I felt was really amusing in this children's picture book was the use of words. I suppose this is what Fletcher would refer to as unforgettable language. In the story, Adria Meserve, uses lots of onomatopoeias to create the lively city that the animals romp through. Not only does she use the animal sounds, but she also adds lots of words to describe the sounds that the animals make on their journey, such as "SCREECH" and "SPLASH." This book would be a great book to read to children when you are trying to teach them about this very specific type of word and how it can be effectively used. I think this book would make it much easier for children to understand why this word form exists and when it may be necessary to use it to create unforgettable language.

[Charmaine · Rating 3 out of 5]

This story is about a city dog named Smog who is homeless. Smog is hungry and is in search of dinner. Smog is finds dinner but has to worry about sharing his dinner with other strays. This story is a simplistic story that mainly focuses on the problem and solution Smog is faced with. As a teacher I would use this story to introduce how to read and use punctuations in sentences. Punctuations are important in a story because it tells the reader the meaning for sentences and what expressions to use. While I am reading the story I will make sure I model how they should read punctuations by emphasize all question marks, exclamation points, and quotation marks. Once we have discussed punctuations in stories I will do a follow up activity to emphasize the strategy students learned in class. I could have students find different text that use punctuations and have them read it with expression.

[Gracie Larcher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Smog the City Dog was a cute read, with great illustrations and a fun story line. I enjoyed reading it and I think students would feel the same.

While, Smog the City Dog may be a little too easy of a read for most students, I think pre-school and kindergarten aged kids would enjoy reading this book as a class. The story itself is about a dog who starts out alone looking for food and in the end works with other animals to save his meal from the water. Readers are exposed to descriptive language, and a handful of new words. This book would be great to read to young students when talking about the importance of working together and sharing. I believe they would love both the story and the illustrations.

[Seth Lebaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book introduces new vocabulary that students may have heard spoken but never seen in a book. It also does not follow the basic style of write that other early childrens books do. The sentences may curve with the street or be turned sideways on the page, so I think I would use this book as a way to help student see a new craft that they may have not encountered before and see if they like this style enough to try writing a story like it.

[Emily Peer · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book would be perfect for a read aloud during a lesson on sharing. You could use this simple book in just about any grade level and it would still translate the same message about being selfish versus working in a team and sharing. The book includes awesome illustrations of the city that Smog is living in and has simple word choice. This would be a fun and quick yet intellectual read for students.

[Matthew · Rating 4 out of 5]

The text is this book curves across the page and into the illustrations. The text and illustrations work harmoniously to tell a story of team work among the different city animals to get dinner. The book is centered on the dog who learns the value to teamwork. If you are a dog lover and a parent of a young child this book should be on the shelf.

[The Brothers · Rating 3 out of 5]

A simple story about a city dog who's hungry. He manages to snatch some food by a person and ends up being chased by other hungry city animals to share the loot. In the end, they all have to work together to get the food as the dog accidentally dumped it into the river.

Really unique interesting illustrations.