A Dog's Tale: The Story of a Little Dog With a Big Imagination

by Kiko

Genres: Picture Books

32 pages, Hardcover

Published March 18, 2025

Reviews

[Stephanie Tournas · Rating 5 out of 5]

This gorgeous picture book relates the epic adventures of the dog One-Eyed Patch. When readers first meet him, he is standing on a crate as the sun goes down on a busy harbor and is wearing an eye patch and a fierce expression. He may be small and plump, but he excels at a dangerous job on the busy cargo ship. A stormy night causes him to fall overboard, get rescued by a kind whale, and then find himself on a jungle island. He has more epic experiences with the denizens of the jungle, especially the elephants. All of the animals weep when he leaves…to return to a park in a city where a little girl named Lily takes him home to a cozy seat in an apartment. Readers see him snoozing, patch-less.

This story is such a fun homage to classic adventure books (A copy of Moby Dick appears on the last spread in Lily’s apartment). One-Eyed Patch has the voice of a hero who has lived through a lot. Adults may guess that his tough guy appearance and adventures belie his actual life, but little ones who love animal adventures will love the ride. The spread showing him fighting red-eyed, demonic looking rats in the ship’s hold will not soon be forgotten! The artwork is beautiful – it has a print-like feel and definitely channels Hokusai on the spread when the little dog goes overboard. The textured ecru paper and print like black outlines add to the classic feel. Translated from the French.

[Denice Langley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Reading with children is a wonderful experience, especially when you have such an entertaining story to read and review with them. The group of 5-8 yr olds decided Jack is a friend they would all love to have. We read the book several times with an audience at different levels of reading and all of them loved it! The best rating you can have for a children's book is when the audience says....can we read that one again? And so we did.

[Bailey Young · Rating 5 out of 5]

Dog's Tale: The Story Of A Little Dog With A Big Imagination is a daring, cute, imaginative, whimsical, and lovely read! Patch is a precious character! His adventures are truly daring from the high seas to the jungle. I love his personality and distinct voice.....I was so taken by Patch that I wasn't expecting the surprise twists at the end!

[Amethyst Maxey · Rating 4 out of 5]

Thank you for the ARC. This was a cute story about a dog perusing his dreams. The illustrations were cute and it was a cute story with the dog meeting all sorts of different animals in different environments.