Wordless picture book, with a small twist. There are signs that do have words to help tell the story. Not a good read-aloud. ( )

Great for young or struggling readers--let them tell you the story! Fun and funny. ( )

I did not enjoy “No Dog’s Allowed for two reasons. First, the book did not have much of a storyline because it consisted mostly of pictures. Characters in the book talk occasionally in talk bubbles where they say things such as “no” or “hmm.” There is also a waiter who communicates through a chalkboard in front of the restaurant he owns. He continuously adds things such as “No fur or feathers allowed” so animals and their owners do not come into his restaurant. By having to basically rely only on pictures to find out what was happening in the story became very confusing. You really had to analyze the illustrations in order not to miss something crucial to the story. Secondly, I do not think the book’s meaning was very strong. The central idea of the book is that when you exclude people based on their outward appearance (like the waiter excludes animals from his restaurant) you end up alone and with no friends. At the end of “No Dog’s Allowed” the waiter ends up allowing animals into his restaurant after losing all of his customers and becoming very lonely. I think that this is a very powerful message but was weakened by using animals to convey it. It would have been a more influential story if humans were the ones being excluded by the waiter. I feel this way because I could see where the waiter was coming from by not allowing animals into his restaurant, because this is a rule in real life. However, if the waiter was excluding humans from his restaurant because of the way they looked, then no one could have justified his actions and a real lesson on excluding people could have been learned. Although “No Dog’s Allowed” tried to convey an insightful meaning it fell flat due to its lack of dialogue and usage of animals to prove its point. ( )

This was a really good book, at times it was confusing, and I was unaware that there would be so many pictures and not a lot of explanation, but this is what makes the book great! It allows for your own interpretation of the story and let's you as the reader conncect with what the people in the boook are feeling. Some are feeling hurt, some are feeling angry, but in the end they are all feeling happy, and I really enjoyed this book. ( )

This picture book is set in Paris, where a fastidious restaurant owner sees a boy with a dog approaching – “Uh oh…” He quickly changes his “Welcome” sign out front to say “No dogs allowed.” He subsequently has to turn away a cat, a rabbit, a kangaroo, and lots of other animals! In the process, he turns away their owners, and is too distracted to tend to the one person sitting at a table waiting for service. Told mostly through sequential pictures, most of what you read is the owner erasing and revising his sandwich-board sign (“No one with fur, feather or shells allowed”). Meanwhile, across the street, all of the animal owners are having a grand time enjoying lemonade from a cart that isn’t refusing service to pet-owners. As you can guess, they all devise a plan to keep everyone happy – and welcome. A cute story with a happy ending. Could be used as a science tie-in to the characteristics of different types of animals – mammals, birds, amphibians, etc.