Stick Dog Crashes a Party

Watson, Tom. Stick Dog Crashed a Party
March 6th 2018 by HarperCollins
Purchased Copy

Stick Dog and his friends are hungry. After a hilarious episode with a ketchup packet, they decide to go and get pizza at Pizza Palace. When they arrive there, they see a car with two humans and two cats who look vaguely family. It's Stick Cat, Stripes' soul mate! The humans are picking up a pizza and are in town for their wedding. The dogs make plans for getting themselves invited, but since it is at a park, that's easy. Karen still chases her tail a lot, but in between there are a lot of plans the dogs need to make. Stick Cat watches from afar, and aids the dogs in any way he can. When the humans are distracted from the food by fireworks, the dogs dig in, gorging themselves on mashed potatoes and ribs. The other dogs manage to get cake, but Stick Dog is busy arranging things and doesn't get any. Luckily, Stick Cat sees his plight and rolls the top layer of the cake down the hill for the hungry dogs.
Strengths: Stick Dog is the consummate professional.  Watson's career as a political speech writer is definitely evident in this installment-- the verbal machinations through which Stick Cat goes to not insult his friends are hysterical. He is the only one with any strategic acumen, and the dogs would all clearly starve without him. I had forgotten the intersection with Stick Cat; I'm not as big a fan of those, as Edith the cat is not very pleasant. These are so clever and make me laugh so much! Investing in a PermaBound set in the fall, since the paper over board covers wear horribly.
Weaknesses: Edith is not a pleasant character. So spoiled and nasty. Why would stick cat be friends with her? Of course, their humans are together, so it's unavoidable. I sort of hoped that Stick Cat would run away and join Stick Dog's pack.

What I really think: Every middle school librarian should go out and read one of these books RIGHT NOW. You will not be disappointed. Sylvie approves of these books!