Spot & Dot

Reviews

A cat trails a runaway dog on a gleeful sprint through a bustling city.Just as Spot (the cat) sees a new neighbor kid pinning up a "Lost Dog" poster, the feline also notices that very dog (Dot) pawing through trash down the street. When Dot takes off, Spot decides to follow. Keeping up with them in Cole's staggeringly detailed urban scenes couldn't be more breathlessly fun—or more challenging. Squinting eyes inevitably settle on myriad vignettes embedded within the double-page, full-bleed, black-and-white spreads of exacting ink crosshatches and linework. Life happens everywhere (in apartment windows, at the bakery, on the street, inside the library, at the dog park, in the flea market). People and animals wave, sneer, smile, pull, lift, doze, fetch, paint, read, and wag and flick tails within these wonderfully congested urban scenes. Interpreting quotidian moments as a voyeur feels immensely pleasurable, and inevitably readers will dawdle and dream about each tiny circumstance—but then remember Spot and Dot and get back to work looking for the oval markings on the creatures' flanks that distinguish them from all the other cats and dogs. So many cats and dogs! When they both return home, there's palpable relief on their owners' faces and in readers’ hearts. An extraordinary search-and-find that delivers the hum and intrigue found in a city's multitudes and also the singular feeling of returning to one's individual place in the world. (Picture book. 4-10) —Kirkus (Starred Review)

This wordless, action-packed follow-up to “Spot, the Cat” has Cole’s frisky eponymous kitty taking off after a lost dog called Dot, and bringing her home after a cross-town adventure. Dot’s grateful owner happens to have moved in next door to Spot’s, making for a joyous dual reunion. Stories within stories unfold in the dazzling black-and white cross-hatched art, so that pre-readers and readers alike can settle in happily to scour each information-rich page for the two critters, who leap and run through a market, a concert, a library and more. —New York Times

PreS-Gr 2–Spot, the curious feline protagonist of Cole’s Spot, the Cat returns in this charming wordless sequel. At first, Spot perches on the chair by the window while his young owner reads. When the boy looks outside as well, they see a girl posting flyers for her lost dog. As they walk downstairs to investigate, Spot promptly dashes down the street and finds Dot, the missing pup, pawing through a trash bin. Dot bounds away and a merry chase ensues, taking readers on another urban adventure. Obsessively detailed spreads show the runaways dashing through city streets, a busy flea market, a trolley, a bakery, a doggy park, an orchestra in a gazebo, and even a library, all the while their children put up flyers. Disheartened, boy and girl head home (turning out to be next-door neighbors) just as their pets return and are reunited with their relieved owners. As in the previous installment, Cole’s meticulous black-and-white illustrations offer a wealth of details for poring over and many decoy spots and dots while the readers seek the furry heroes. VERDICT A worthy follow-up that stands just as well on its own, this warmhearted tale will delight the young animal lovers and fans of the search-and-find genre.–Yelena Voysey, formerly at Pickering Educational Library, Boston University —School Library Journal

Henry Cole invites children to join in a merry chase through the streets, shops and alleys of a busy city in "Spot & Dot" (Little Simon, 32 pages, $ 17.99) , a wordless picture book for 3- to 7-year-olds that's a sequel of sorts to "Spot, the Cat," from 2016. The usual order of things gets reversed here, with a cat pursuing a dog rather than the other way around. It all starts when Spot the cat and his young owner see a girl putting up posters for a lost dog. As the two children confer, Spot catches a glimpse of the canine fugitive. And they're off! Sprinting through Mr. Cole's intricate black-and-white tableaux, the animals, each with white fur marked by a single black spot, are well camouflaged. Children will need to study some of the pages hard to find the two as they dash, here invading a bakery, there infiltrating the bric-a-brac of an outdoor antiques market. —Wall Street Journal

In the opening pages of Henry Cole’s wordless picture book “Spot and Dot” (Simon and Schuster, ages 3-8) a girl carries a stack of “lost dog” fliers as her neighbor and his black-spotted cat come out onto the sidewalk of their city street. Spot, the cat from Cole’s earlier book about feline adventures, is a bit of a detective, finding Dot and an overturned trash can nearby. Spot follows Dot, and the reader gets to go along, too. The action zips through the busy streets, and as it does, you’ll find yourself laughing out loud and searching the illustrations carefully to make sure our heroes — Spot the cat, Dot the dog, and the boy and girl who care about them — are all just fine. On every page, life goes on, with dogs in abundance and one dogged cat. A variety of people stroll past streetcars, browse antiques in an open-air market, walk their dogs in a park where musicians prepare to play and visit a friendly neighborhood library. After the book is closed, the lively story lingers, sparking the imagination in readers and non-readers alike, who can create their own narrative for this charming, immersive, superbly detailed saga. —Washington Post

We first met cat Spot and Spot’s boy owner in Spot, the Cat (rev. 3/16). Here Cole adds two new characters: dog Dot (like Spot, white with one large oval black marking) and Dot’s girl owner. When Spot notices the girl putting up “lost” posters on the street, the cat dashes off in pursuit of the missing dog, and the boy joins the girl in her endeavors. As in the previous book, detailed wordless black-and-white double-page-spread cityscapes — filled to the brim with people, pets, vehicles, activity, life — ensue. Spot pursues Dot through an open-air market, a bakery, a park, a library, etc. Viewers will find the single large black spot on each pet crucial in locating Spot and Dot on every wonderfully crowded spread — although the fair amount of disruption the two cause wherever they go also helps draw the eye. All ends happily, with both pets home with their owners — who turn out to be apartment-building neighbors — and new friendships launched all around. A fresh, absorbing, and entertaining offering from a veteran picture-book creator. From the July/August 2019 issue of The Horn Book Magazine. —The Horn Book Magazine