25 February 2023 HOT DOG by Doug Salati, Random House/Alfred A. Knopf, May 2022, 40p., ISBN: 978-0-593-30843-1

“Hot town, summer in the city

Back of my neck getting dirty and gritty

Been down, isn't it a pity

Doesn't seem to be a shadow in the city

All around, people looking half-dead

Walking on the sidewalk, hotter than a match head”

– Lovin’ Spoonful (1966)

“City summer

steamy sidewalks

concrete crumbles

sirens screech

so hot! 

can’t sit or sniff or wait

crowds close in

too close!

too loud!

too much!

THAT’S IT!

won’t move one bit”

No, this is not about the kind of hot dog you eat , unless you are a hungry wolf or coyote. This is the tale of a weiner dog who lives in the city and reaches his breaking point while out on a walk one summer day. 

Fortunately, the bespeckled, floppy-hatted woman with whom he resides is an empathetic, loving owner (who has probably had her own fill of the city’s blazing sun). She picks up the pup, hails a taxi, and catches a train and then a ferry. 

They arrive at a barrier island beach where the hot dog is free of his leash. The formerly hot dog is in his glory, racing around the sand, collecting stones, dodging the waves, and encountering seagulls and a seal. 

After he has the time of his life, the sun descends and the moon rises as the dog and his person make their way back home to the city. 

“happy for home

hungry for supper

what a day for a dog!” 

After some chow, the pair fall asleep, and the formerly hot dog dreams of swimming underwater with the seals.

HOT DOG, a tale of a memorable day at the beach, is this year’s well-deserved Caldecott Medalist. With a minimum of text, Mr Salati’s photoshopped pencil and gouache illustrations successfully evoke the distress of the congested, overheated metropolis. They depict the utter joy of a child…err…dog escaping summer in the city and cooling off at the beach on one of those afternoons you wish would go on forever and ever. 

The dramatic contrast between the hot, crowded city, and the breezy seashore is accentuated by means of the perspectives employed in the illustrations. Salati first shows a close-to-the-ground, dog’s-eye view of the crowded, sweltering city, and then, in dramatic contrast, switches to broad aerial views of the journey to the temporary paradise of an afternoon on the beach.  

Together, the poetic text and depictions of this loveable pair and their day at the seashore make for a masterful, memorable tale that reminds me why many of us feel compelled to live within a manageable distance of the coast.

Richie Partington, MLIS

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