A Vacation for Pooch by Maryann Cocca-Leffler (review)

Vacation can be bittersweet if you’re leaving a friend behind, and so it is for young Violet, whose beloved dog Pooch is staying with Violet’s grandparents while she and her parents go to Florida. After an enjoyable day at the beach, Violet realizes with horror at nightfall that the special bag she packed to go with Pooch instead came with her to Florida; when she calls her grandfather in guilt and desperation, she’s relieved (and a little wistful) to find out that Pooch has been having a grand time without her on his own vacation. Cocca-Leffler hits squarely on the youthful attachment to pets, with its blend of responsibility, projection, and love, and the anxiety of separation here; the narrative is carefully structured, with parallels between kid and dog, neatly repetitive outlines of Violet’s activities, and back-and-forth dialogue adding rhythm to the story. Bright touches of patterned fabric collage add further liveliness to the light-filled gouache scenes, with compact split-screen vignettes allowing viewers to see Pooch’s and Violet’s vacations simultaneously; while faces are minimally suggested, Violet’s a dark-haired charmer who could credibly belong to various ethnic backgrounds. This will be a usefully light-hearted way to approach separation anxiety of all kinds, and the book’s small size makes it perfect to tuck into a bag for reassuring worried young travelers who miss their own furry friends.