Book Review: The Mutts Spring Diaries

We received The Mutts Spring Diaries right in the middle of a serious cold spell that sent temperatures into the single digits (and just so you know, that is not what winters in our part of the world are usually like). It came like a gust of warm air … happy air … the kind that brings the promise of new life. In other words, it was just exactly what we needed.

In case you are not familiar with it, Mutts is a daily comic strip created by Patrick McDonnell. It features the adventures of a dog named Earl and a cat named Mooch, and it is the one strip we make sure we read every single day. Others we can catch up with at the end of the week, but we just have to see Mutts every day.

The Mutts Spring Diaries is a collection of daily strips from springtime. In them, birds return from hibernation, a bear awakes from his winter’s sleep, spring showers fall, Mooch sheds (in an entertaining way), Mooch follows the example of a caterpillar friend and tries to become a butterfly. We found a chuckle or warm smile on every page. There is also some fun bird-related content at the back of the book: instructions for building a bird feeder from a plastic bottle, a checklist for a bird-watching scavenger hunt, and facts about birds’ eggs and calls.

The book is designed to look like a composition notebook—the kind you might keep a diary in if you happened to be a 7- to 12-year-old (the target audience for this Mutts Kids book). But no animal lover is ever too old for Mutts. The art is delightful, as McDonnell’s seemingly simple pen strokes make Earl, Mooch, and their friends come alive on the page. And the underlying message is always one of kindness and compassion, friendship and love. That is something we will always support.

Recommended!

A note on the "Paws Up" system: Miss C gives either one or two paws up. One paw is for a good read; two paws is for a great read. She never gives three or four paws because that would require her to lie on her back...and Miss C does not do that!

We received a free copy of this book in exchange for a fair and honest review. We wouldn’t tell you it was good unless we really liked it!

The link below is an Amazon Associates link. If you purchase the book through this link, old SoLT and I could get some coin for our kibble account. Thank you!

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