Mia (Greg McCroary, New Holland, $12.95 hb, ISBN 9781741106367, December) ***

Mia is a dog who has enjoyed the company of her best friend Tommy for all the school holidays. One morning Tommy leaves on the school bus and Mia is alone at the bus stop, wondering where her playmate has gone. She embarks on a search for him around all their favourite neighbourhood places but finally gives up and returns sadly to the last place she saw Tommy. To her delight, there is the school bus again, and there is Tommy, and she is reassured that he will always return to her at the end of the school day. Young readers will relate to this story of the relationship between a small boy and his dog, as many of them have had to leave their pet to attend school. The text is easy to read but the rhyming couplets sometimes seem forced and contrived and I wonder if it was really necessary to write this story in verse. The bold and colourful illustrations tell the story of Mia’s day well, with interesting locations and varying perspectives and angles, giving them variety and energy, but for some readers they might be a little overpowering.

Margaret Hamilton is a former children’s publisher and now provides freelance publishing services and reviews

This review from Australian Bookseller & Publisher magazine is reproduced by kind permission of Thorpe-Bowker, a division of R R Bowker LLC. © Copyright 2007, Thorpe-Bowker