Synopsis: Bailey's Day, by first time author Robert Haggerty, speculates for beginning readers about what actually happens when Bailey's owner sets off to work.
Hardly one to sleep all day, Bailey, a black and white pointer, sets off for a day of child pleasing adventures. Haggerty's age appropriate text is accompanied by delightful, full color illustrations as well as photographs of the real life Bailey hooking up with her best friend, the wiener dog Frankie, their romp through the park, and their feast of tacos with Pete, The Taco Man, until Bailey suddenly runs into her owner, the mailman, out on his rounds.
Written for parents or teachers of children just beginning to read, author Haggerty takes careful measure with vocabulary building and with the pace and length of his sentences, while still encouraging young readers' imaginations to take off in flight, about what their dogs do when they're off at school for the day.
Review: As you can see from the photos, my daughter was entranced by this book by page 2! As I've told you before, she is in SERIOUS "I want a puppy/dog mode", so any book about dogs is gonna be looked at at least once! This one she adored and we've read at least 5 times since we've received it! Although I get to read 1-2 pages, and then she 'reads' me the rest! It is amazing how much she remembered after only ONE reading and could recite the whole book back to me, almost exactly! (and yes, Pillow Pet as we call him, daughter advises that IS his name, okey dokey then, goes to bed with her every night and HAS to be read to as well. He's more well behaved than the cat, so I'm kosher with it!)
As you can see the illustrations by Bobbi Switzer are very clear and bright and grab a young child's imagination very quickly! My daughter loved the second section with the photos of the real life Bailey (the 'other one' as she called her!) and thought the 'looks' the 'other one' had in the photos were funny!
The book was very cute and helped bring home the idea that doing fun things is great, but sometimes you shouldn't because you're not supposed to. We discussed the bad things that could have happened to the dogs and how sleeping on her owner's shirts caused Bailey's owner alot of work and daughter understood and told me when Bailey was being 'bad'. I love kids books that help children learn but in a funny way, so the topic stays with them, and this book is a perfect example! Hurry out and pick up one for your little dog lover today (it's available at all the mass book markets).