Title: Dogs Have Fish Tales Too!
Author: Carol Ford
Illustrator: Rhita Gale Echivarre
Publisher: Xlibris
ISBN: 978-1-6698-7418-8
Pages: 24
Genre: Illustrated Children’s Book
Reviewer: Beth Adams
Pacific Book Review
Author Carol Ford takes readers on a fanciful adventure of a group of two dogs, one cat, and an elephant – all going out for a day fishing, in her illustrated children’s book titled, Dogs Have Fish Tales Too!
The book is narrated by a dog “Flat,” a name given to him by his human owner because of a birth deformed back. Upon arriving at the fishing hole, Thumpee, the elephant, was holding the fishing line and Flat got a hook caught in his back. As flat screamed in agony, Tiger, the cat, used his sharp claws and cleaned – then removed the hook – the first mishap was fixed. Then, oops, Tiger fell into the pond, and it’s true that cats can’t swim. Flat threw a fishing pole in Tiger’s direction and rescued the cat – second mishap was over. Next a mouse runs up to Thumpee and scares the elephant, causing a high anxiety moment, but Tiger, the cat, goes to the rescue catching the mouse with his masterful claws. Finally, the dogs, cat and elephant had full bellies, and dozed off to sleep – but not paying attention to the firepit. So, as the flames spread around the campsite, Thumpee gathered lots of water in her trunk and doused the fire – a bit too late as some firemen and a firewoman arrived on the scene. So, without a fire to put out, the firefighters did what was fun – they made fishing lines and fished the pond.
Although everything turned out alright in the end, the moral of the story is you have to be prepared for the unexpected, and work like a team to solve problems; which is a good twist of the storyline into showing real actionable safety decisions to the readers. The generous interleaving of illustrations ideally followed the narration, making this story come to life and become an excellent fishing tale. The title, Dogs Have Fish Tales Too!, makes the distinction of the word “tale” vs. “tail” – showing youngsters a tricky detail of the English language.
Carol Ford has created a silly, yet lesson-packed short bedtime story for youngsters to enjoy. Having the fish grilled on an open fire sounded delicious, but when they ate the mouse as an appetizer – well that surprised me. But that’s a good thing, to have some surprises woven into a short story. All I can say is that it is a good thing the cat didn’t drown – otherwise what would they do? Have surf-and-turf?
