Work, Dogs, Work: A Highway Tail
By Darienne Stewart,
Common Sense Media Reviewer
Common Sense Media Reviewers
Dogged crew cheerily shows how roads and bridges are built.
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What's the Story?
Duke rallies his team during breakfast to repair a road. Each truck does its part, including hauling rocks from the quarry. Work comes to a sticky halt when they run into mud, so the resourceful crew engineers a tunnel and then a bridge to get the job done. When the road's finished, it's time to kick back and relax with a fun time at the beach.
Is It Any Good?
WORK, DOGS, WORK: A HIGHWAY TAIL follows in the paw prints of two earlier books in this cheerful, informative series by James Horvath. Foreman Duke and his team of dogs -- along with Jinx the cat, who can be found in every spread -- show children how a road is made. The work crew handles setbacks with ingenuity, adapting to an unexpectedly muddy route by blasting a tunnel through rock with a terrific "kaboom!" and then building a cable suspension bridge.
Rhyming text, humorous details, and crisp, bright artwork add to the fun. Horvath even works in a clever nod to P.D. Eastman's classic Go, Dog. Go! -- an obvious inspiration -- with a two-page spread of a dog directing canine drivers to stop, then go.
Talk to Your Kids About ...
Families can talk about the many types of work that go into a large project such as building a road.
Have you read Build, Dogs, Build: a Tall Tail and Dig, Dogs, Dig: A Construction Tail? How does this book compare? Do you like it as much as the others? Which is your favorite, and why?
When you see construction workers or equipment, talk about the work they're doing.
Book Details
- Author: James Horvath
- Illustrator: James Horvath
- Genre: Picture Book
- Topics: Cars and Trucks, Cats, Dogs, and Mice, Great Boy Role Models
- Book type: Fiction
- Publisher: Harper
- Publication date: September 23, 2014
- Publisher's recommended age(s): 4 - 8
- Number of pages: 40
- Available on: Hardback
- Last updated: June 4, 2020
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