David LaRochelle

author & illustrator

See the Dog: Three Stories about a Cat

by David LaRochelle
illus­trat­ed by Mike Wohnout­ka
Can­dlewick Press, 2021
Ages: Preschool to Grade 3
ISBN 978–1536216295

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The dog is sick today, but have no fear—the cat is hap­py to take his place. But when the book tells her to dig a hole, fetch a stick, and guard a sheep, she finds very un–doglike ways to get the jobs done. See Baby Cakes the cat as she returns to star in her own fun­ny begin­ning read­er from the team that cre­at­ed the Geisel-win­ning See the Cat: Three Sto­ries About a Dog.

Buy the Book 

Resources

Don’t for­get to check out these free down­load­able activ­i­ty and exten­sion sheets. They’re the cat’s meow!

See the Dog Writ­ing & Draw­ing Activity

See the Dog Mix­up Activ­i­ty, a clever flip-the-flap sheet

Awards and Recognition

Bank Street Col­lege of Edu­ca­tion Best Chil­dren’s Books
Chica­go Pub­lic Library’s Best of the Best Chil­dren’s Books
Junior Library Guild Selec­tion
CCBC Choic­es
Kirkus Best Books
Cybils Award, Easy Read­ers
South Dako­ta’s Chil­dren’s Choice Prairie Bud Award, 2023–24

Reviews

“The play­ful rebel­lion against the repet­i­tive Dick-and-Jane pat­tern makes for non­stop, rip-roar­ing fun. Using around 130 words and their vari­ants, the care­ful yet deli­cious­ly over-the-top writ­ing keeps the text acces­si­ble yet engag­ing. Wohnoutka’s full-col­or car­toon illus­tra­tions hilar­i­ous­ly accen­tu­ate the cat’s histri­on­ics … See this book fly off the shelves.” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review)

“Gouache illus­tra­tions cap­ture the hilar­i­ty and read­ers will enjoy the three vignettes that pro­vide a com­plete nar­ra­tive arc of Cat’s day sub­bing in for Dog … Using sim­ple lan­guage, humor­ous speech bub­bles, and laugh-out loud fun­ny illustrations—LaRochelle has anoth­er win­ning ear­ly chap­ter book that read­ers will enjoy hav­ing read to them as well as con­quer­ing on their own.” (School Library Jour­nal, starred review)

“A well-designed, irre­sistibly fun­ny sequel for begin­ning read­ers.” (Book­list)

“The sub­ver­sion of the sta­t­ic text with con­tra­dict­ing or sim­ply goofy visu­als clev­er­ly brings the sto­ry to a meta lev­el, but young­sters can still hone their bur­geon­ing skills on the narrator’s direct, sim­ple sen­tences. Fans of See the Cat will be delight­ed to see the cat here, as will read­ers of Willems’ We Are in a Book! and Scieszka’s Bat­tle Bun­ny.” (Bul­letin of the Cen­ter for Chil­dren’s Books)