A Boy, His Dog, and the Sea

This dreamy tale by former U.K. children's laureate Browne starts in a minor key as young Danny, feeling "a little sad and bored" while his brother Mick is out with friends, is encouraged by their busy mother to take the pale-skinned family's dog Scruff for a walk on the beach. "Keep your eyes open," she says. "You never know what you might see." As Danny walks glumly along, hunched over, everything around him seems glum, too--the gray skies, the oddly human expressions of vacant beach huts, the corvid inexplicably holding a balloon in its beak. Then Danny persuades Scruff to fetch a stick thrown into the water, something Scruff has never done before. When Danny happens on a group of people onshore gesturing at something in the distance, he sees a waving figure and sends Scruff out to fetch it, with startling, dramatic results. A rescue tale with a cracking finale, it's also a story about learning to perceive, a theme pursued both in the story's narrative thread and in its delicately conceived and executed watercolor illustrations, in which elusive forms--animals, faces, and more--shift and change. Background characters are portrayed with various skin tones. Ages 3-7. (June)