Bark, George by Jules Fieffer

Ok, this one's rather weird. Based off the cover I had high hopes for it being cute + a lot of fun to read, what with all the different animal noises, etc. But, as aforesaid, sadly it was a disappointment, at least for us. I thought the simple illustrations would act kind of like a Dr. Suess, but instead they just seemed scraggly and didn't capture the interest of Princess E at all. (Instead she was actually disturbed and concerned about the mother dog on one of the pages. Honestly, it was more than a little disturbing.)

And I thought the premise was that of a young dog learning how to bark, but *spoilers* the problem is actually that he has a bunch of other animals inside him making all the wrong noises. (Parenthetical note: through it all the mother dog also has no sense of humor. :/) Anyhow, the way they go about solving the problem is, yeah... just kinda weird for the young age group it's geared for, IMHO. Not bizarre necessarily, the overall effect's just... odd.

Anyhow, this was probably all way more than adequate for a critique of a short picture book, but just the thoughts I had immediately upon finishing. ;) It does seem fairly popular so if you're interested, go ahead and look into it, but I don't think we'll bother with it again.