Stick Dog Dreams of Ice Cream

Tom Watson's Stick Dog Dreams of Ice Cream is a sticky, very silly story for 7 year olds about five stray dogs on a scorching summer day.

What happens

It's so hot that Mutt's been to the creek four times in an hour, just so he can come back sopping wet and shake himself over his friends. Out fly a Ping-Pong ball, a blue marker, two bottle caps and an old grey sock (which he then settles down to eat).

Stripes is sick of gritty creek water. So the gang set off to find somewhere better to drink.

Poo-Poo is in charge of finding water, because he says he can smell anything. He has to stalk a squirrel first, naturally. Then he points proudly at a garden sprinkler everybody else could already see.

Karen decides it's a rain cloud that crashed into the ground and flipped over. Stripes is sure it's attacking the children running through it. And when Karen and Poo-Poo fiddle with the tap (Poo-Poo uses his head), it bursts back into life and proves her right. WATER ATTACK!

Then comes the music. An ice cream van parks up round the corner, and not one of the dogs knows what ice cream is. Is it a drink? Is it solid? They split two against two and look to Stick Dog to settle it.

The best bit is the puddles. Drips from the children's cones leave little coloured pools on the road, and the dogs lick their way from one to the next. Poo-Poo tastes a blue one and goes misty-eyed over a box of Froot Loops he once found in a tipped-over bin. Who knew a puddle could be so moving?

Stick Dog is the calm one. He follows the van, learns its pattern and decides a few licks every twenty minutes isn't worth all that running. They need some from the van itself.

The narrator keeps popping in to chat. He's got strong feelings about celery stuck in your teeth, and wonders what your dog gets up to while you're at school.

It reads aloud beautifully. The jokes come from four friends being completely sure of themselves while Stick Dog quietly keeps them out of trouble.

It's the fourth Stick Dog book, but earlier adventures only get a passing mention.

What to read next

If your reader loved Mutt shaking half a junk shop out of his fur, there's more of that in Stick Dog Takes Out Sushi. This time a pencil, a mitten and six identical pointy sticks come tumbling out, and Karen wonders what kind of tree they came off.