Gracie's Baby Chub Chop - Hardcover

Gillian Johnson is a gifted athlete, teacher, storyteller, and artist. Her first children’s book, Saranohair, was awarded Honorable Mention for the Graphics Prize in Bologna in 1992. My Sister Gracie, published in 2000, was awarded the Alcuin Design Award and has earned fans in Belgium, Australia, New Zealand, Denmark, Iceland and Venezuela. She has collaborated with author Richard Scrimger, providing the illustrations for their books about Baby Bun Bun, which include, most recently, Eugene’s Story. She also illustrated Dennis Lee’s The Cat and the Wizard. Gillian Johnson lives with her husband, writer Nicholas Shakespeare, and their sons in Tasmania and England.

Kindergarten-Grade 3–Gracie, a large brown dog, and Fabio, a small white one, are content with their lives until their owners baby-sit Baby Chub Chop while his parents travel to Timbuktu. Gracie figures she can tolerate a visitor for a week or two, but Fabio warns the child, "Stay away./Leave me alone./Don't touch my rug,/My ball, my bone." When the adults are not looking, Baby Chub discovers that he can walk and proceeds to make a mess of the house. Of course, Gracie and Fabio are blamed and banished "To the doghouse!" Later on, the pets are forgiven when they show their owners some inky footprints that reveal the true culprit. This comical tale will have kids identifying with the very human reactions of these animals when Baby Chub invades their space. The rhyming text keeps the action moving quickly, but it is the humorous watercolor-and-ink illustrations that portray the pets with funny facial expressions that make this story amusing rather than lesson oriented. While certainly predictable, it will engage readers.–Wanda Meyers-Hines, Ridgecrest Elementary School, Huntsville, AL
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