Madeleine L'Engle - The Other Dog

The Other Dog by Madeleine L'Engle, one of my favorite authors, and illustrated by Christine Davenier is an adorable book written by a poodle about the introduction of another dog who is actually a baby.

The story begins with an introduction by the author, Touche, a canine, whose mistress went away for a few days and then returned with another dog. Touche doesn't understand why a family would need more than one dog. Because she is very talented, and loves to sit on laps, and lets her master groom her, among other things, why would they want another dog? Plus the new dog goes to the bathroom in the house (in diapers) and has very little hair to be groomed. And her masters have to feed the dog all the time, maybe in the hopes that it will grow a tail.

But as time passes the new dog, Jo, grows onto Touche. They carry on conversations, and become quite fond of each other and ultimately Touche changes her tune. She thinks every family should have atleast two dogs.

I thought it was an adorable little story and probably relatively accurate to what a dog might think when a new baby is brought home. It is a good thing Touche is such an even tempered dog and a good sport about the whole ordeal, otherwise she might have missed out on an opportunity to make friends with the 'other dog'.

The end of the book has four pages of author's note about how Touche was a real family pet who loved to be on the stage. It tells about how she joined the L'Engle family, and some of the things she did in her lifetime and how she inspired the author to write this book. It was interesting to me, but I am not quite sure how interesting it would be to a child of the age for which the rest of the book was aimed.

I'd say this book is aimed at children 4-8. There are about 10 lines of text on each page, and lots of illustrations to help show what Touche is talking about. At the beginning if you were only to read the text and not look at the pictures it would be difficult to know that this 'other dog' was a human baby.

But the pictures are great. They are done in watercolor and pen I believe. Touche has curly brown fur and long ears. I love the illustration where you see the mother changing the baby's diaper and Touche's nose is way up in the air in disgust. This dog, from her writing, obviously has a lot of emotion, and the pictures show all the things she is talking about. You see how she dances to get her food, and how she has to go out in the rain for her walks when the baby never has to walk (she gets a stroller), let alone go out in the rain. You can see a smile and some blush on Touche's face in a few of the illustrations. I really enjoyed the attention paid in the artwork of the book.

The only thing I didn't like, and it is me being picky, is that Jo is shown as a tiny baby sleeping on her stomach. Nowadays that is a no-no to put babies to sleep on their stomach because it can contribute to SIDS.

I would recommend this book to any child, but especially one with a dog. I always find it interesting how animals actions become humanized in stories, but so often I have to agree with the way they are presented. Touche is a cute poodle trying to understand her world and L'Engle's words bring that story to life, while Davenier's illustrations add color and meaning to the words.