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.
Jon Klassen's characteristically earth-toned artwork sets the stage. Two boys walk out from a porch where a red tulip blooms, and their pet cat with a red collar stays behind. A rooster-shaped weather vane points in the direction in which they're headed. One boy sports a blue baseball cap, dungarees and a knapsack; the other wears a red cap and khakis, and they each balance a shovel over the left shoulder. 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." At two body lengths below ground, a cutaway view reveals a perfectly diamond-shaped pink gem hidden in the ground beneath the apple tree. The dog sniffs toward the treasure. "We need to keep digging," Dave says. Their red-collared cat peers down into the hole as the boys descend; the dog continues to sniff toward the diamond below the apple tree; and the top of another, even larger diamond becomes visible directly under them.
Klassen plays with perspective on the next page. Ground level is no longer visible; readers see only a deep shaft of light where the boys sit, pausing for some animal cookies wrapped in their grandfather's kerchief. The dog continues to dig downward toward the larger diamond, now less than a foot beneath them. But Dave thinks, "we should dig in another direction." 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, Klassen reveals a little more of the steadily escalating joke. Their fork in the path reveals a still larger undiscovered diamond (the dog, of course, digs unsuccessfully in its direction). This is an exercise in suspending disbelief, which children will gladly undertake. (Where does the dirt go? How many hours have elapsed?)
As the now dirt-covered boys nap, the dog at last finds a buried treasure. As he closes in on it, the world turns topsy-turvy. "Sam and Dave fell down,/ down,/ down...." So long do they fall that they come clean and look as they did when they started. "That was pretty spectacular," says Dave upon their soft landing. 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
Shelf Talker: Two brothers and their dog go on a topsy-turvy treasure-seeking adventure that changes their lives forever.