Book Review: The Happiness of a Dog with a Ball in Its Mouth

Title: The Happiness of a Dog with a Ball in Its Mouth 

Author: Bruce Handy

Illustrator: Hyewon Yum

Date: 2021

Publisher; Enchanted Lion

ISBN: 978-1-59270-351-7

Length: pages aren't numbered; I count 52 very decorative pages, some of which fold out, so some might count more

Quote: "The patience of a dog at the door. The happiness of a dog with a ball in its mouth."

This is a feel-good book. Each page or two-page illustrates, in color, one of the universal pleasures of life, with different combinations of people and animals. The author/illustrator team even consider "The distance of a journey. The happiness of getting there" from the viewpoint of ants raiding a sugar canister. 

Although the pictures are the point, and the text consists of captions for the pictures, adults can enjoy reading this book aloud to children until they memorize it. The pictures are clever, cute, and tasteful. Children who are still fascinated with their body processes can learn something from the illustrations of "holding in" and "letting go"...with no need to mention further details. Children who want more "story" could, as I remember doing around age five, make up their own series of stories or poems to go with the pictures...there's a word for that genre of stories and poems, "ekphrastic," and some children are quite good at it.

A really commercial web site would demand more words for a blog post. This web site generally takes the position that a book review should be shorter than the book itself.