About the Holiday

We always appreciate our pets, but April is a month dedicated to showing them a little extra love and care while making sure they have everything they need to live a long, healthy, and happy life. The founders of National Pet Month wanted to promote responsible pet ownership whether you share your life with a fish, a cat or dog, a horse, or any of the other animals that make good companions. To celebrate this month’s holiday, spend a little extra time playing with your pet and check that they’re up-to-date on their veterinary visits. This month is also a great time to enjoy some books about animals!

Pippa & Percival, Pancake & Poppy: Four Peppy Puppies

Written by Deborah Diesen | illustrated by Grace Zong

Come and meet Poppy, a puppy “out for a run, / Tumbling, rumbling, / Looking for fun.” When Poppy came to a fence, she heard something on the other side and just had to explore. She dug underneath and “found… / Another puppy!” Pancake was shaggy and eating apples that had dropped from a tree, but he followed Poppy until they came to a stump behind which “they found… Another puppy!”

celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-pippa-and-percival-pancake-and-poppy-parade

Image copyright Grace Zone, 2018, text copyright Deborah Diesen, 2018. Courtesy of Sleeping Bear Press.

This dachshund named Percival was smelling the flowers, but he joined Poppy and Percival, and they “rollicked and frolicked” until they came to a big pile of leaves. As they nosed around, sniffing, they happened to find… “Another puppy!” With a fancy fur-do and a little black bow, Pippa was ready to join in the fun. So “Poppy and Percival, / Pancake and Pippa, / Galloped and gamboled, / Their ears flippy-floppy.”

An alley looked intriguing, so the four “squeezed their way in.” It was dark and silent as they warily padded along until “they found… A cat!!!!” Then the four friends had to “scoot and skedaddle! / Hotfoot and hurry! / Scramble and scuttle! / Scamper and scurry!” They soon found a sidewalk with four separate branches that took Poppy and Pancake and Percival and Pippa…”Home!”

celebrate-picture-books-picture-book-review-pippa-and-percival-pancake-and-poppy-three-puppies

Image copyright Grace Zone, 2018, text copyright Deborah Diesen, 2018. Courtesy of Sleeping Bear Press.

Deborah Diesen’s bouncy, alliterative rhymes are as infectious as the exuberance of a puppy at play. This engaging friendship story reveals the thrill of bonding with new friends over good times and even a shared spot of trouble. Kids will love joining in on the repeated phrase that leads to finding another puppy and will gasp and giggle at the interloper that sends all of the puppies scampering for the comfort and welcome of home. Diesen’s evocative vocabulary will have readers repeating and using such fun words as scuttle, gamboled, rollicked, and clambered.

Grace Zong’s four peppy puppies are adorable and bursting with energy as they joyfully play on a sunny afternoon. Her colorful, wide-open vistas give the puppies plenty of room to play in and cleverly lead into a close up of each new puppy that joins the group. The alley is more unknown to the puppies than actually scary, which lets their surprise find an exciting twist to the pattern. The four panels showing each puppy returning home are filled with delight as each owner welcomes their puppy home with open arms and extra love.

Ages 3 – 7

Sleeping Bear Press, 2018 | ISBN 978-1585363865

Discover more about Deborah Diesen and her books on her website.