Sieb Posthuma, a Dutch author/illustrator, has produced a highly likeable story about a family excursion to a large department store. It’s instantly apparent from the opening page that we are in a world peopled by dogs. The bus driver in the first illustration is a dog. The car driver is a dog. The passengers are dogs. And rusty is one of three young dogs travelling to the department store with their mother. “It’s very busy inside,” [mom] says. “So what do we do?” “We all stay together!” chant Rusty, Henrietta and Toby. But of course they don’t. Rusty is led astray by the smell coming from a customer whose basket shows that they have just come from the food department. He follows her into a lift and the adventure begins. One of those picture books that works almost entirely because of the lively light-hearted illustrations.
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