Bow Wow Bugs a Bug

Bow Wow Bugs a Bug by Mark Newgarden

This is the clever story of a puppy who chases a bug around town, while running into a few minor issues along the way which only continue to become bigger issues. The story begins with a small black dot on one page, and Bow Wow snoozing away on the other. He wakes up in the morning, goes down to his food bowl for breakfast, when the little black bug bounds over to his bowl and intrigues Bow Wow. Bow Wow follows his little bugger around town, until he runs into a dog with all kinds of black dots on him. He loses his bug friend on this dog, but then realizes that all of the black dots on thew new dog are actually bugs. Bow Wow finds his bug of interest again and continues to stalk him around town. Eventually, Bow Wow runs into a dog that looks exactly like him, who also has a bug to bother. The two dogs realize that they look so similar so they begin to mirror one another on the sidewalk. When they part ways, Bow Wow follows his bug until he bumps into an ENORMOUS dog that looks just like him. The large dog chases Bow Wow around the block, when suddenly Bow Wow sees that all the dogs in the city have their own bugs to bug too. When he quickly turns and runs in the opposite direction, he finds something quite ODD -- ENORMOUS BUGS bugging small dogs! As the dogs bug the bugs, and the large bugs bug the small dogs, Bow Wow hides out until his little bugger comes around the corner and leads him home. He gets home, and the bug and him go right to sleep.

I love this book. The detailed, quick changes from illustration to illustration in this story will provide children and adults alike an opportunity to pay close attention to the differences and patterns in the story. I think that children will like the irony of the story, with the big bugs bugging little dogs. This would be a fun introduction for an extension activity, where children could create their own stories where the patterns seem to reflect off of one another as the story goes on. I love this book!