A Small Brown Dog With a Wet Pink Nose by Stephanie Stuve-Bodeen and illustrated by Linzi Hunter

A Small Brown Dog With a Wet Pink Nose by Stephanie-Bodeen and illustrated by Linzi Hunter was a creative story that I found pretty entertaining. Many children face opposition when asking their parents for a dog, and this book gives advice on how to convince their parents to get a family dog.
Amelia, the main character in this story, begs for a dog. However, her parents say that it isn't a good time right now. Therefore, Amelia comes up with a plan that she knows they will be unable to resist. She invents an imaginary dog! She feeds him, takes him on walks, plays with him, and sleeps with him. She decides to name him "Bones". Well, one day Bones goes missing. They cannot find him anywhere. Eventually, their search leads to an animal shelter. Amelia had previously made her parents promise they would find Bones and take him home. Well, Amelia "finds" Bones at the shelter when she sees a small brown dog with a wet pink nose. In the end, her parents decide that they must take Bones home with them.
I really liked this book. I think it is very relatable for many children (I know I always begged for pets until my parents gave in). I found it humorous that Amelia came up with a plan to trick her parents. She had asked certain questions and prepared to lose her imaginary dog in order to go to the shelter for a real one.
My favorite elements in this book had to do with the illustrations. One may wonder, how can one show an imaginary dog in a picture? Well, the dog was always outlined in a dotted line. The illustrations were mostly cartoon-like, but some of the pages had photographs of real dogs. I think this is a pretty clever technique. I also really liked how the text was not all the same. Some of the text was presented in conversation bubbles, some was enlarged or bolded, and it did not always follow the same pattern from page to page. There were often many scenes within the pages that were separated by dotted lines. The last page of the book has "Amelia's Guide to Getting Your First Dog" with all of the steps included for readers.
I think this book was fun and refreshing. I would recommend it to others.