Stick Dog Craves Candy

Tom Watson's Stick Dog Craves Candy is a funny Halloween adventure for 7 year olds about five stray dogs who've never heard of trick-or-treating.

What happens

This is the seventh Stick Dog book, and it starts with an argument. Karen, Mutt, Stripes and Poo-Poo have got lost in the woods on the way to Stick Dog's pipe again. So obviously he's moved it. (It's an eight-foot pipe that runs right under a hill and a motorway.)

Stick Dog doesn't argue. He likes how pleased they look with themselves. He just says he's hungry, and that's the end of that.

It's autumn, which is a hard time for strays. Nobody's barbecuing, and every open kitchen window smells of big warm dinners they can't have.

Poo-Poo's nose leads them to a little brick house. Stripes props herself up to look through the kitchen window, knocks a flowerpot off the sill and comes tearing back shouting "Run for your lives!" She's seen two witches. And now the witches are crossing the road, carrying round orange heads.

Is it scary? A little, in the silliest way. The dogs squash under a parked car. Poo-Poo is sure they'll be boiled into stew. Karen wonders which vegetables will go in. Mutt hopes for the green bugs with blue wings he used to catch riding in a mail truck. Meanwhile Stick Dog edges out to the bumper, ready to be grabbed so his friends can get away.

Your reader will be ahead of the dogs here, and that's the fun of it. The witches walk straight past. Stick Dog spots trainers under the costumes, and the orange heads turn out to be buckets. One packet of sweets flies out onto the grass, and that's all it takes.

The narrator stops for a chat whenever he likes. There's his test for whether your dog is really a dog (food beats a favourite toy every time). There's also his trick for dodging homework, which is standing in the garden pretending to be a tree.

It's American through and through, so there's trick-or-treating, Cheetos and Skittles, and sweets are always candy. None of that should trip up your reader.

One small thing to mention. The dogs hide under a car, and the narrator stops to say plainly that it's dangerous and not something to try. He'd rather you were a tree.

What to read next

If your reader's still hungry when this one's done, Stick Dog Crashes a Party has the same five strays and opens with a squishy red packet bursting all over Karen's nose.