Walter the Farting Dog

October 8, 2001
Here's a companion to Taro Gomi's Everyone Poops, albeit with less educational value. Walter, a fat gray dog with an apologetic look on his face, comes home from the pound with two children. He has incurable gas, and his family decides to take him back. The night before he is to go, Walter sadly devours "the 25-pound bag of low-fart dog biscuits the vet had prescribed for him, which had made him fart more.... A gigantic gas bubble began to build inside him." Wouldn't you know, two burglars break in, and Walter's liability becomes his asset. Predictable stuff, but Kotzwinkle (Trouble in Bugland) and education writer Murray know their audience. Their simple strategy—just keep saying "fart"—should have children rolling in the aisles during read-aloud. Newcomer Colman likewise fixates on one visual gag, Walter with steam blasting out his backside. Unlike Babette Cole, whose Dr. Dog
takes a mock-scientific approach to digestion, Colman specializes in reaction shots; in her surreal collages of photos and patterns, people hold their noses and a cat glances at the culprit. Yes, this lowbrow endeavor could be a crowd-pleaser but, like its topic, its disruptive effects will tend to linger. Ages 4-8.

March 29, 2004
Companion books blossom this spring. The maligned mutt returns in a sequel to last year's bestseller: Walter the Farting Dog: Trouble at the Yard Sale by William Kotzwinkle and Glenn Murray, illus. by Audrey Colman. Father, fed up with Walter's malodorous practice keeping buyers away from his yard sale table, sells the family pet to a suspicious-looking fellow who uses the pooch's singular ability as part of a bank-robbing scheme-a plan that, er, backfires.