Bow-Wow-Meow (Egalite)

Lovely book to teach your little one that we must love others for what they are, and Fabio is not an exception.

Great introduction for accepting differences

Blanca Lacasa's "Bow-Wow-Meow" is a charming book that holds a meaningful lesson for everyone. An individual should be loved and accepted for who they are on the inside and not what they look like on the outside.Gomez' colorful illustrations add to the book's appeal through the pictorial representations of Fabio and Max's activities and emotions. The illustrations appear somewhat one-dimensional albeit with some minimal shading. Children will find the illustrations fun and funny.Fabio looks like a dog, he just doesn't act like one. No matter how hard Max and his family try to get Fabio to perform dog-like activities, he never does so. Fabio is not a happy dog. One night, Max discovers Fabio is nowhere to be found; night after night, Fabio is missing. When Max eventually follows Fabio, he discovers Fabio happily playing among a group of cats. The next morning, Max acknowledges Fabio's true self, treating him as he would any other cat.Some will read a PC message into the story of Fabio. Others will find the story perfect to impart a message of accepting yourself and others for whom you/they really are and not what they appear to be. In light of that perspective, I loved this book.

Fabio is just not a normal dog. No matter what Max and his family do, they can't get him to do the normal things that dogs usually do. He doesn't bark, wag his tail, or play fetch. (The picture of the barking dog matches my little chihuahua almost perfectly, which definitely added to my son's delight in the story). The one thing that Fabio does do is disappear every night. Max decides that he is going to follow Fabio and see what happens on his nightly trips. What he finds is Fabio playing with a bunch of cats. This immediately changes how Max treats Fabio. Instead of treating him like a dog, he treats him as a cat and all live happily ever after.Now my son vaguely remembers that we had a cat with my dog even though the cat only lived for a year (kitty leukemia is awful). After reading this, my son starting pointing out things that our dog does that is cat-like. I've told him that because the dog and cat were babies together, they learned from one another. So, there are some things that our dog does that is distinctly catish, like pounce. There were things that the cat did that were distinctly dog-ish also. Then we talked about sometimes it is just nice to do things because they are fun to you, even if they are not normal. After reading another book that quoted Janis Joplin , we decided that "I am just one of those regular weird people" is our household motto.

I LOVE it! The sweet storyline by Blanca LaCasa and the charming illustrations by Gómez make this book one that could easily become a favorite for children, as well as their parents and teachers. This is the story about a caring boy and his quirky dog. It tells about their unique relationship, and serves as a parable about accepting and loving others just the way they are. As an parent and educator, I believe this would make an excellent lesson to help children develop appropriate social skills. As an artist and writer, I believe this book could possibly become a classic children's story. My only observation as an advocate of bilingualism, is that the publishers should have kept the original Spanish text along with the English translation, for the purpose of exposure to different languages. (By the way, Kim Griffin and Ben Dawlatly did an excellent job translating the text, since meaning is sometimes lost during the latter.) Regardless of my observation on bilingualism, I highly recommend this book!