Rhyming couplets were never more perfectly suited to a read-aloud tale than this one, starring a beagle on a mission and his human family (plus their pet cat).
Jon Agee, who imagined the formative years for jolly St. Nick in Little Santa, here visualizes the double life of Stanley, the Wimbledons' talented dog. In the opening scene, a woman sits up in bed, a cat looks pie-eyed, and the man next to her lays awake. "The Wimbledons were sleeping./ It was very, very late,/ When Wilma heard a spooky sound,/ Which made her sit up straight./ 'That's very odd,' said Walter./ 'I don't recognize the tune...' " The only word appears in a speech balloon on the spread that follows: "Howooo!" A beagle bays at the full moon, as Walter Wimbledon and the cat stand in the front yard of their very vertical house. "It's only Stanley," Walter reports back to Wilma. "He's howling at the moon."
Agee sticks to a palette of greens, blues and adobe reds. The blue-gray hue of Wilma and Walter's bedroom wall gives way to the deep cornflower blue of a moonlit sky, with Stanley partially obscured by long meadow grasses. The sing-song rhythm of the couplets adds to the comical escalation of the situation. One by one, their four children join Wilma and Walter in their bed after hearing strange sounds. First Wendy hears a clanking sound ("It's only Stanley," Walter says, "He fixed the oil tank"), then Willie smells something funky ("It's only Stanley," says Walter, "He's making catfish stew"). Each time Walter checks, Agee uses a wordless spread (with choice sound effects) that lets readers in on visual clues to a larger puzzle. Even though sleep-deprived Walter doesn't take note of the hole in the TV room floor to access numerous electrical cords, children will. They'll also delight in detecting the poor family cat (Max) bearing the brunt of Stanley's project, with oil-doused fur and a singed tail, among other ailments.
The stripes on Wendy, Willie, Wanda and Wylie's pajamas hark back to Agee's escaped convicts in The Halloween House, and suggest suburban entrapment. Luckily, Stanley's out-of-this-world plans for the household break them out of their dreary routine. Readers will relish going back to the beginning to see how Stanley achieved his goal. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness
Shelf Talker: Jon Agee creates an out-of-this-world read-aloud adventure for the Wimbledon family, courtesy of their inventive dog, Stanley.