This wordless adventure takes readers on a journey to the four corners of the world, yet brings us full circle to the place from which we started.
A husband-and-wife team follows a Scottish terrier's travels with a poppy-red umbrella, which the pooch discovers leaning against a tree. A gust of wind sends dog and umbrella on a far-flung adventure through the Serengeti plains, under the sea and up through the Arctic Circle. The dog uses the umbrella like a cane in a soft-shoe dance as it walks on clouds and, later, like a sword against some threatening crocodiles. Other animals help the hero along the way. A closing scene pictures the Scottie returning to the same house where a cat still waits in the roadway--and suggests the feline may be up next for a journey of its own. Lyrical scenes invite young onlookers to create their own narrative for the canine hero's odyssey. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness