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Farley Follows His Nose

by Lynn Johnston and Beth Cruikshank; Lynn Johnston, illus.

When we last saw Farley, the scruffily loveable and loveably scruffy sheepdog from Lynn Johnston’s beloved strip For Better or For Worse, he was, well, dead, having snuffed it while rescuing the Patterson family’s youngest daughter from a creek.

He now returns, more than a decade later, to star in his very own picture book. Elly, Farley’s owner, is preparing to bathe the furry fellow when he gets a whiff of barbecued hot dogs and tears off on a day of scent-driven adventures. He crashes the barbecue, visits a construction site, jumps into a pool, and hits up some marshmallow-roasters, before ending his day by using his nose to rescue a lost boy. As Farley careens from place to place, tongue out and eyes bright, the text lists what he is smelling (“hotdogsapplejuicelemoncakepopcorn”) in multicoloured ribbons that hang in the air.

Farley’s adventures are reminiscent of Linda Bailey and Bill Slavin’s Stanley books, though Farley is slightly more guileless than Bailey’s creation, lacking Stanley’s edge. Farley is all about forward motion, and doesn’t pause to make any kind of canine comment on the humans with whom he shares his world.

Johnston’s illustrations, familiar to anyone who knows the daily strip, are lively, if a little serviceable, without the cleverness or visual density that make some picture-book illustrations linger in the mind. They are, like the book’s hero, amiable to a fault.

All the same, Johnston’s book (co-written with her sister-in-law and frequent collaborator Beth Cruikshank), is more than charming enough (and certainly lively enough) to go into medium-rotation for bedtime readings. If it isn’t exactly an instant classic, the very fact of Farley’s return from the beyond helps put it over.

 

Reviewer: Nathan Whitlock

Publisher: HarperCollins Canada

DETAILS

Price: $19.99

Page Count: 32 pp

Format: Cloth

ISBN: 978-1-55468-518-9

Released: May

Issue Date: 2009-5

Categories: Picture Books

Age Range: 4+