Hot Dog by Doug Salati

It is a hot day. The dog is hot but luckily his owner has a plan. First they have to navigate the hot and busy city streets. The pavement is so hot and everything is way too noisy and busy. In fact the little dog finally collapses and refuses to walk on. 

Luckily the lady is able to hail a taxi and they travel, slowly, to the train station. Then there is a ferry ride. Their intended destination is the beach so it is lucky that there is a beach umbrella shop right beside the ferry wharf. On the beach the dog is free to run and roll and enjoy the ocean spray. He collects rocks and pebbles and his owner makes a beautiful picture on the sand. Finally, it is time to go home so she gathers the pebbles and the pair of friends retrace their journey by ferry, train and on foot. The city is so much better now that the weather has cooled down. At home they enjoy a snack and then head to bed for a night of sweet dreams. 

My friend from Kinderbookswitheverything has been waiting for this book to arrive in Australia. Hot Dog won the Caldecott Medal in 2023 but until this year the price was way too high for a school library budget. In the US this book was published by Alfred K Knopf but the copy we have here is from Pushkin Press UK.  Now that this book is a good price AUS$25 I highly recommend you consider adding it to your library - a perfect book to read on a very hot summer day.

In Australia we would call this a Sausage Dog but in the US he is a Wiener Dog which you could associate with hot dogs (the food)! Weiner is a German word meaning sausage. 

In this conversation Doug Salati talks to Horn Book. See other books by Doug Salati here.

Salati expertly captures the stifling claustrophobia of hot and crowded city streets. One can almost feel the palpable temperature shift when the colors on the pages move from vibrant oranges, reds, and yellows to blues and greens, like a tonal reprieve. Happily, the book avoids demonizing cities in favor of the country, showing instead how a bad day affects your every sense. Spare poetic text also perfectly captures this small canine’s mindset. Kirkus Star review

Practically a wordless book, the storyline delves deep into the mindset of an average dog, an average owner, and the cool seaside breezes that can pivot a day from miserable to marvelous. ... For my part, the thing that struck me about the book right from the get go was the way in which you empathize with this little dog. You feel the heat that it’s experiencing. The loud sounds. The crowded streets. Is it possible to convey sensory overload through the printed page? If so, Salati has mastered it. SLJ Betsy Bird. (Click this review extract to see Doug Salati talking about his book)

Minimal, impressionistic free-verse text beautifully sets scenes and conveys character and emotion, expertly matched by the illustrations. Claustrophobic vertical panels, angular lines, and hot oranges, reds, and yellows (of the city) give way to expansive, sometimes full-spread horizontal panels and cool blues and greens (of the island escape). Horn Book

When I read Hot Dog I thought of this very old book: