This weekend was a weekend filled with picture book reading, three graphic novels, a trip to drop the nephew off at his father’s and rewatching of the movie Coco (if you have not seen it, LOTS OF TISSUES required). In other words, a normal weekend that had a little bit of everything to fit the “at the moment” mood.
And one of those moods was Odd. I have been putting off the picture book Odd Dog Out since I first found the reader copy. I am not really a dog person and something about the cover illustration made me go, Oh. Okay. Not now. But when I picked up Rob Biddulph’s book this weekend I was ready to be dazzled. Amazed. And possibly find a new favorite recommendation.
Maybe my hopes were too high. Maybe I put too much pressure on this book. There is nothing different with the theme. It is about being the (literally) Odd Dog Out. The dog likes all the things that others do not. It stands out from the crowd. It starts to think that something is wrong with it, they travel to another place where they see Others Like Them. Great! Or is it? Because soon, Odd Dog Out see another Odd Dog Out in this new world. But this time, this dog likes being different and standing out. And First Odd Dog goes home where people have learned to accept being different. That is nice. But, obviously done before.
The rhyming text, slightly different illustrations than what you might expect (cartoonish and basic but have interesting details and characters that are all the same dog, just dressed differently by the end), do make it a nice addition to the subject.