In this funny, deadpan adventure from the team behind Extra Yarn, two boys and their dog set out to dig a hole and wind up in a place they'd never expected.
Two boys walk out from a porch where a red tulip blooms, while their pet cat, wearing a red collar, stays behind. A rooster-shaped weather vane points in the direction in which they're headed. Their brown spotted pooch leads the way. They pause near an apple tree: "On Monday Sam and Dave dug a hole." When the shoveling lands them waist-high in a hole, Sam wonders, "When should we stop digging?" Dave answers, "We won't stop digging until we find something spectacular." A cutaway view reveals a perfectly diamond-shaped pink gem hidden in the ground beneath the apple tree. Later, the dog digs downward toward a larger diamond, now less than a foot beneath them. But Dave thinks, "we should dig in another direction." Mac Barnett's deadpan text will have children yelling, "No, no, dig down!" Yet Sam agrees, "Yes.... That is a good idea." This vaudevillian line of dialogue continues as Dave suggests they split up. Each time, Jon Klassen reveals more of the steadily escalating joke.
As the dog closes in on a prize, the world turns topsy-turvy. "Sam and Dave fell down,/ down,/ down...." The dog may be the only one with buried treasure, but the boys have certainly experienced something spectacular. But wait, look carefully at that cat, that porch, that tree in the yard. The boys' lives are forever changed by their adventure. --Jennifer M. Brown, children's editor, Shelf Awareness