Pawcasso, a charming graphic novel that sucks you in like a rainy Sunday

Elementary-aged students love reading about dogs. If someone created a graphic novel about a dog that can solve algebra problems then the issue about some kids not liking math would be immediately solved. The dog could then master the Periodic Table, learn calculus, make kids realize that popularity is a worthless currency or any number of other fabulous lessons. Pawcasso is an all-age graphic novel with a simple premise that will hook those kids who need to, and want to read about a young girl named Jo and her dog.

It’s actually not her dog and that is the fact that becomes the underlying story of Pawcasso. Jo sees the dog, who would later be named Pawcasso, going to the store. She’s with her two younger siblings in the house sees this dog with a shopping basket in its mouth going into town. Awww, it’s a beautiful down with a basket in its mouth who looks like it’s going shopping.  Even without seeing the visual of this, it’s one of the cutest things that you or any young reader can imagine seeing.

Jo just goes outside to see the cute dog and follows it into the store. A dog that goes shopping is certainly a thing that will draw curiosity and attention and that’s exactly what happens. As the shopkeeper and other shoppers gather around Pawcasso and Jo, it’s not that she lies, it’s just that she doesn’t correct their false assumptions. They assume that it’s her dog because she walked in with it and all of this attention isn’t bad for Jo, so she gamely plays along.

After the store, she tries to take Pawcasso back to where he lives, but he’s not that good on a leash. Jo unleashes him and he sprints off to his home. A couple of days she sees him again, but he’s quite smelly because he rolled around in poop, as some dogs do. Being the good, not-really-owner, that she is, she takes him to get a bath, which only further cements her reputation as being the owner of the coolest dog in town.

Pawcasso proceeds to take art classes, motivate a downtown area, anger the dog catcher and so many more issues that one wouldn’t think could happen. That is the charm of Pawcasso.

It’s a one-note, all-age graphic novel that flies past the low expectations that some might have about a dog and its pun-inspired name. That’s how the surly critic would describe it.

The younger reader, as well as, the more well-rounded critic would say, this all age graphic novel is a charming delight that will subdue even the surliest of readers.

Both of those folks are correct, and lets cut that first one some slack, OK? Picasso is a great, all-age graphic novel that tells a very simple tale, but manages to make it extraordinary by making it so much fun to read. The story and art by Remy Lai is pitch-perfect for the tone and length that will hit upper elementary through middle school. Those older readers will appreciate how smart the graphic novel is. It’s a simple premise, yet it shakes that up and treats those readers as the smart kids they are by addressing the questions that they’re asking in their heads. The younger readers might be asking those questions too, but they’ll be having too much fun looking at the pictures and loving the fact they’re reading a big-kid graphic novel to notice.

Pawcasso is an all age graphic novel by Remy Lai and available on Henry Holt and Co., an imprint of Macmillan Publishers.

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