We all love to doodle at times. It's fun to get out your pen and make it swirl ... and dance ... and play on your paper. It frees your mind and your spirit as you get carried away in the romance of the never-ending motion. Today's book is what happens when those curly cues magically transform a dream into a reality ... or does it?
Unwrapping...
Written and illustrated by Frank Rodgers
Ages: 3-8
Unwrapping some of the amazing illustrations for you...
About the book...
Please meet Sam. He is an adorable little boy whose heart's desire is to own his own dog. His mother does not concur as they live on the fifth floor of an apartment building with no garden. She gently tells Sam it would be unkind to the dog to live there. She encourages him to draw a picture of a canine he would like instead and she helps him out to make the dog look a bit more realistic than what he could manage on his own. They work on the picture project together until both are happy with the results bringing a smile of contentment to their faces. Sam lovingly takes his masterpiece to bed with him when it's time and and places it lovingly beside him on his comforter.
Magic surreptitiously arrives and mysteriously Doodle the dog becomes a reality. He happily licks Sam awake to greet him and together they run off into the day to play, explore and enjoy each other's company. Is Doodle real or a figment of Sam's imagination? Will the magic be permanent or reverse itself and reduce Doodle to a 2-D image on Sam's piece of paper once again? Has Sam finally gotten the dog he has been dreaming of and can he actually keep him forever?
The coloured-pencil illustrations are soft, muted and retro looking. Each is packed full of detail, action and emotion. The overall vibe of the book is happy, loving and very kid-friendly. Both young and old will love the simplicity of the book augmented by the appealing illustrations. I highly, highly recommend this book.
About the author...
I was born in a small town near Glasgow in Scotland and grew up with a love of writing and drawing. Graduating from Glasgow School of Art, I was an art teacher in secondary schools for seventeen years, doing my best to ignite the creative flame in my students… and keeping my own creative flame alive at the same time by illustrating children’s books by other authors in my spare time.
But, as my own two children grew up, the call of children’s writing became too strong and in 1987 I submitted three picture book ideas to a few publishers. Puffin offered to publish all three and I took the plunge - left teaching and became a full-time children’s author and illustrator. Since then I have written and illustrated over seventy books for children including….
The Bunk-Bed Bus (Chosen for the Standard Attainment Tests in English schools), Doodle Dog (Shortlisted for the Nottingham Children’s Book Award), A is for Aaargh! (Top Ten choice Children’s Book Group) The Witch’s Dog and the Magic Cake (A top 50 book chosen by the Federation of Children’s Book Groups), Mr Croc’s Clock (Also a top 50 book chosen by the FCBG) The Intergalactic Kitchen (A children’s BBC TV series) Eyetooth (BBC Audio CD) The Witch’ s Dog series (Animated TV series) and Pirate Penguins (Shortlisted for the Telford Libraries Prize)
My books have been published in Europe, the US and Asia, read on radio and appeared on TV.
While still creating my own stories and characters, I have continued to illustrate books written by other authors and am, at the moment, illustrating a series of books by a new young writer.
Read on and read always!
It's a wrap.
Contact me at storywrapsblog@gmail.com
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