A Very Marley Christmas
Kindergarten-Grade 4&ndash;The pup from Grogan's nonfiction titleMarley: A Dog Like No Other(HarperCollins, 2007) returns in a picture book. This slight story records the yellow Lab's destructive puppy antics. The repetition of Bad dog, Marley! seems antithetical to current, positive-reinforcement-based pet-training techniques, but one can understand the frustration as the pup ruins project after project for every family member. Cowdrey's illustrations do their best to showcase Marley's exuberance and joie de vivre, but only partially succeed. Better dog stories abound.&ndash;Lisa Falk, Los Angeles Public LibraryCopyright &copy; Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.