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Reviewed by:
  • Frankie by Mary Sullivan
  • Deborah Stevenson
Sullivan, Mary Frankie; written and illus. by Mary Sullivan. Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2017 32p
Trade ed. ISBN 978-0-544-61113-9 $12.99
E-book ed. ISBN 978-1-328-80941-4 $12.99         R Gr. K-2

After Ball (BCCB 5/13) and Treat, Sullivan again returns to the simply worded world of dogs here. Spotted pup Frankie is excited to be adopted from the shelter, named, and taken to his new home. However, when Frankie approaches the red rubber ball thinking "Frankie's ball?", the current dog in residence, Nico, snatches it away with "No. Nico's ball," and so it goes for the bone, toy puppy, blankie, and other canine goodies. Possession-less Frankie decides to amass his own collection from things found around the house, but then it turns out his new owner has a whole pile of brand new dog paraphernalia just for Frankie. Frankie's vocabulary extends beyond the single word of his predecessor in Ball, but it's still effectively restricted, including just his name, Nico's name, and mostly the few items around the house he's yearning after. The structure of the text (all in word bubbles) is helpfully repetitive, so early readers don't have to worry about much syntactical variety. The illustrations make easy work of decoding the text, with clean sets focused on the dogs and the contended objects, but there's plenty of additional mood and drama between quiveringly eager Frankie and tremblingly indignant Nico. Between their effective narrative arc and clever vocabulary deployment, Frankie and Nico are welcome additions to the pantheon of emerging reader heroes.

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