Archie

Written and Illustrated by: Domenica More Gordon

Bloomsbury Books for Young Readers, 2012, Hardcover Edition

Target Audience: Ages 3-8

Genre: Fiction

Themes: Trying something new, following your dreams, self-confidence

How We Discovered This Book: My son chose this book during media class, and brought it home from the school library.

Summary:

Archie decides to make his dog some new clothes. Soon, they are the talk of the neighborhood and everyone wants cute clothes for their dogs too.

What I Liked:

This book is wordless, which is not usually the type of picture book I gravitate towards. However, the story flows along nicely without the words, and my kids could follow along without any explaining from me. The illustrations are charming and minimal.

What Did My Kids Think?

My kids are very interested in animals right now, so a book full of dogs is very appealing. They find it funny that dogs would have dogs as pets. My astute son even noticed that all of the dogs in the story have the same type of dog as they are (a boxer has a boxer as a pet, for example), except Archie. He appears to be a lab type dog, while his pet is a terrier. Curious…

Resources:

There are no existing resources for this book, so I’ll get a little creative this time.

The author is an artist known for her miniature felt dogs. Check out a story here about her dogs and the inspiration for the story.

There is another Archie book, Archie’s Vacation, which we have not yet read.

If you have dogs in your life, maybe you think they need some cuter clothes themselves? There are plenty of instructions on pet clothing and other related projects.

Maybe you really like the illustrations, and would like to try your hand at drawing a dog.