“The first day was harder than Spot had supposed.
His practice at Sniffing got grass up his nose.
The sides of his mouth ached from holding a stick,
and he pulled from his arm what he thought was a tick.”
 
You’re barking up the wrong tree if you think Spot is a dog on his first day of obedience school. Spot’s not a dog. He’s a boy. His real name is Robert McDoodle and he’s at obedience school because his real passion is to be a dog.
 
In The Strange and Wonderful Tale of Robert McDoodle (hereafter referred to as Robert McDoodle), author Steven Bauer delights the reader on two counts: First with his flair for dactylic rhyme (see below for explanation), and second, with his take on canine idiosyncrasies.
 
Digging Lessons
While at obedience school, Spot, aka Robert McDoodle, doggedly learns the ten forms of required digging. For inspiration, author Steven Bauer had to look no further than his own backyard. “While I was writing Robert McDoodle,” Bauer recalls, “I had dogs who, together, had managed to create cool oases under shade trees, to unearth mole runs, and to bury chewies—there were holes everywhere, all of them annoying to me.
 
 “My dogs seemed to dig for all sorts of very specific reasons,” notes Bauer. “So that’s what I wrote about.” (Take note, aspiring writers. All authors say it in one way or another: write what you know.)
 
Other Lessons
But surely Bauer’s dogs inspired more than just the digging section of Robert McDoodle. “My dogs are irrepressible, badly trained, and sloppy drinkers,” the author says. “Galahad is a genius; Duncan is a slow learner.”
 
Whom does Spot, aka Robert McDoodle, take after? Perhaps he’s a Heinz Variety: part sloppy drinker (after all, who wants to drink from the porcelain bowl?) and part slow learner (marking the yard is slow going for two-legged animals.) Hard lessons aside, the determining factor in Robert McDoodle’s future is the realization that he might turn 42 on his sixth birthday. When his parents come for a birthday visit and bring the gift their son always wanted, Spot once again has his whole boyhood ahead of him.
 
Make Reading . . . Soothing and Surprising
“I think that rhythm and rhyme are hardwired into us, and that children, especially, take joy in the repetition of sounds,” says Steven Bauer. “Coming to understand that a pattern will be repeated creates a sense that is both soothing (we know what to expect) and surprising (but it won’t be exactly what we expect).”
 
Robert McDoodle is written in dactylic rhyme. (This type of verse utilizes a trio of syllables. Generally, the syllables follow either a strong-weak-weak pattern or a weak-weak-strong pattern.) “Writing the book in this type of rhyme was fun as well as challenging,” notes Bauer.
 
The reading of Robert McDoodle is also fun, but it can be addictive. Unfortunately, children’s books written in this rhyming style are rare, but there are a couple of additional titles to consider. The I Spy Picture Riddles books, written by Jean Marzollo, are easy to read. (There is also an I Spy video entitled A Mumble Monster Mystery and Other Stories.)
 
More advanced readers will enjoy Good Masters! Sweet Ladies! Voices From a Medieval Village, written by Laura Amy Schlitz. Schlitz’s Newberry Award winning book is part prose, part poetry.
 
Lori Williams is a freelance writer who specializes in writing about international adoption and the special needs child. Lori resides in Bethany with her husband Dean and daughter Aurelia.