Cowpoke Clyde and Dirty Dawg — Lori Mortensen

Cowpoke Clyde's house was completely clean -- he'd even shooed off the horseflies: “Then right behind his cookin' pot, / he spied one thing he'd plumb forgot: / ol' Dawg, his faithful, snorin' friend, / all caked with mud from end to end.” Needless to say, Dawg wakes up and runs. The chase that follows -- with page-turn surprises -- makes for a hilarious shaggy-dog story involving fleas, a hog, bribery, cats, deception, and a mule. The rhyming stanzas are pitch-perfect, Texas-style, and plumb near cry out to be read aloud. Austin's expressive acrylic and colored-pencil caricatures of Cowpoke Clyde and his menagerie are priceless. A storytime shoo-in!