Sunday, July 7, 2024

Summer Reading - Yellow Dog Blues

Today I am happy to share with you another book from Eerdmans Books for Young Readers - Yellow Dog Blues by Alice Faye Duncan and illustrated by Chris Raschka. Of all the books I've reviewed this summer, this one has my favorite illustrations! I love these colorful, detailed, and unique illustrations and recommend Yellow Dog Blues, as the illustrations are enough of a reason to get it!

Favorite Features -

  • As I wrote above, I LOVE the illustrations - they are so unique and colorful and just fun! There are solid reasons it received the New York Public Library Best Illustrated Children’s Books Award (2022)
  • I appreciate the history "lessons" on the last three pages provides some context, history, and background information for this story.
  • The story takes the reader on a "road trip" in the deep South.
Eerdmans Books for Young Readers says, "A lyrical road trip through the Mississippi Delta, exploring the landmarks which shaped one of America’s most beloved musical traditions.

One morning Bo Willie finds the doghouse empty and the gate wide open! Farmer Fred says Yellow Dog hit Highway 61 and started running. Aunt Jessie picks up Bo Willie in her pink Cadillac, and together they look for his missing puppy love. Their search leads them from juke joints to tamale stands to streets ringing with the music of B.B. King and Muddy Waters. Where, where did that Yellow Dog go?

Acclaimed creators Alice Faye Duncan and Chris Raschka present a boogie-woogie journey along the Mississippi Blues Trail. With swinging free verse and stunning hand-stitched art, Yellow Dog Blues is a soulful fable about what happens when the blues grabs you and holds on tight."

There are things I like and even love about Yellow Dog Blues, but I do wish it had a "happy ending", especially since it is a book for children, but the story and the amazing illustrations will capture the imagination of the children you love - maybe you and the children you love could "conspire" together to come up with your own ending for this story! (I know when my grandsons were young, they would have decided to end it with either them finding their lost dog, or the dog returning home to greet them when they arrived home.) 

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