Hot Dog
Mark Sperring and Sophie Corrigan
Bloomsbury Children’s Books

Totally and adorably silly is the latest offering from the creators of Jingle Smells. It’s the tale of a hot dog sausage that yearns for just one thing – to be a real-life dog that can frolic on the beach, play with sticks and generally do doggy things. Standing on a shelf close at hand just as the little hot dog is making that wish, is none other than the Mustard Fairy. With a few squirts of mustard she grants his wish and off dashes one transformed pooch to enjoy himself.

There’s a problem however: with their superior sense of smell, the other dogs on the sandy shore, sniff-sniff something they seem to like just a bit too much. YIKES! Off dashes poor Hot Dog towards Flo’s ice-cream stand, begging for help.

Now being a kindly woman, Flo immediately responds positively to Hot Dog’s plaintive plea by launching a counter-attack with her wares, causing the marauding and increasingly hungry hounds to turn tail and flee.

That leaves – hidden ‘neath a parasol – our little Hot Dog, albeit with some adornment near his rear. And Flo? Well, she has something super-special to offer her new friend.

Infused with summery sunny feelings, Mark Sperring’s rhyming romp together with Sophie Corrigan’s splendid seasonal scenes showing Hot Dog, hilarious high spirits and much of the action at close quarters, make this book one to share and relish over and over, this season and beyond.