Broadway Barks

by Bernadette Peters

Blue Apple Books, 40 pages, $17.95  

Available on Amazon.com

If you are both a dog lover and a theatre fiend, it's hard to beat the lovely summer day that Shubert Alley, the epicenter of Broadway, presents Broadway Barks, a fantastic pet adoption event hosted by Mary Tyler Moore and Bernadette Peters, both pet adopters extraordinaire. Each year, a huge array of cheery Broadway performers, from Audra McDonald to David Hyde Pierce, deploy their considerable star power to entice the audience to adopt a deserving animal. Many people and animals go home very happy that day, with a song in their hearts.

Now, Bernadette Peters, with able help from artist Liz Murphy, has turned the event into a charming children's picture book. Told from the point of view of Douglas, an abandoned dog, the book follows Douglas from his lonely outdoor home, to a chance meeting with a pretty lady who looks a lot like Bernadette Peters, to his triumphant "performance" on the Broadway Barks stage. This leads to his adoption by a little girl named Isabel. Douglas, renamed Kramer, gets a new home, a nice dinner, and an endless supply of belly rubs. A perfect adoption story.

The book's mixed media artwork, cleverly blending fabric, paint, and newsprint, makes New York look fantastic, and the story, though simple, has humor and power. As an added bonus, the book includes a CD that features Peters reading the text of her book, plus Peters' extraordinary singing - of the very first song she's written herself!

This would be a great book to get your dog-crazy early reader, particularly those who might be bugging you to volunteer at the local shelter. (Trust me, they exist - I know a young lady who knows EXACTLY the day, month, and year she'll be old enough to volunteer. She likes Hannah Montana, but for her, the officers of Animal Precinct are the real rock stars.)

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