Sally Dog Little: Undercover Agent

Sally Dog Little: Undercover Agent
Bill Richardson
illustrated by Celine Malepart

My Rating: 5 out of 5

Genre: Fiction/Digital Text
http://www.tumblebooks.com/library/asp/newbook_details.asp?category=New%20Books


The Littles are a normal, predictable family. Mom works at a gym and has a prized petunia garden, dad signs important papers all day, their daughter Twinkle is a good student, and they have a dog named Sally. Sally Dog rises each day, and knows exactly how to make each member of the family happy. Twinkle, the only child in the Little household, can't wait to grow up. But when Twinkle shares her “When I grow up” dreams with Sally Dog, Sally Dog gets to thinking. Sally decides she’d like to be an undercover agent, and so begins her new career. She spends breakfast spying on the secrets behind the Littles’ formal morning rituals. Her next assignment takes her to the backyard, where she discovers all kinds of secrets. Ultimately, Sally saves the day when she spies a dog catcher about to pounce on a dog, who's stalking a cat, who's staking a bird, who's stalking a worm, who is creeping along one of Mrs. Littles' pink petunias! Sally is worried the dog catcher will pounce all over the flower bead, so she lets out a few warning barks, and scares everyone off! Sally makes her way back inside the house, deciding an undercover agent is not the job for a dog.

I really enjoyed this story. I liked the predictable pattern it followed, and think students would enjoy it as well. It is a good story to get kids thinking about what they might like to do when they grow up. The digital text format, I thought, was very effective. As the narrator read the text aloud, the words were highlighted in red so the student could follow along easily. Also, I thought the illustrations with limited animation were effective. There was enough to make the story entertaining, but it wasn't too much to where it distracted from the story. I found this website on the Champaign Public Library. Tumblebooks offers many types of books and can be accessed easily.