{"id":14267,"date":"2026-10-13T09:39:20","date_gmt":"2026-10-13T09:39:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/readingmate.co.uk\/littlereads\/our-library\/stick-dog\/"},"modified":"2026-10-13T09:58:31","modified_gmt":"2026-10-13T09:58:31","slug":"stick-dog","status":"publish","type":"our-books","link":"https:\/\/readingmate.co.uk\/littlereads\/our-library\/stick-dog\/","title":{"rendered":"Stick Dog"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Stick Dog by Tom Watson is a silly, chatty story for 7 year olds about five stray dogs who REALLY want a hamburger.<\/p>\n<p>First you have to make a deal with the narrator. He can&#8217;t draw (his art teacher scrunches up her face at his dogs) and you&#8217;re not allowed to give him any trouble about it. He&#8217;s also going to tell the story his way, which isn&#8217;t the way his English teacher likes.<\/p>\n<p>Deal? Good. This is the first Stick Dog book, so it&#8217;s where you meet everybody.<\/p>\n<p>Stick Dog lives in a big empty pipe under Highway 16. He sleeps on an old sofa cushion and chews Frisbees, and he reckons he&#8217;s got it pretty good.<\/p>\n<p>His four friends are always dropping by. There&#8217;s Poo-Poo the poodle (it&#8217;s short for POO-dle, apparently). There&#8217;s Stripes the Dalmatian, who&#8217;s covered in spots. Then there&#8217;s Karen the dachshund and Mutt, who is a mutt.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s summer, the wind is blowing the right way and somebody at Picasso Park is barbecuing. That&#8217;s the whole story really. Five rumbling tummies and one family picnic.<\/p>\n<p>Getting there takes a while. Poo-Poo spots a squirrel, takes an acorn to the head and starts asking if anybody has a cannon. Stripes mistakes a barbecue fork for a double-bladed sword. Karen goes missing, and the others are planning her memorial before anyone thinks to look by her favourite bin.<\/p>\n<p>Then come the plans, and they&#8217;re gloriously bad. One involves Poo-Poo driving the family&#8217;s car. Can he drive? No. Another needs a cape, a rope and the roof of a gazebo.<\/p>\n<p>Stick Dog is the sensible one, but he&#8217;s so kind about it. He never tells his friends a plan is terrible. He finds something nice to say and quietly moves them on.<\/p>\n<p>The narrator chats to your reader the whole way through. He stops to explain what a dilemma is (overcooked green beans or cauliflower) and tells you about being caught with bubble gum in the library. If you&#8217;ve got a reader who likes a book that talks to them, they&#8217;ll probably feel like they&#8217;ve made a friend.<\/p>\n<p>Not every idea is one you&#8217;d want copied. Mutt&#8217;s plan is to bite the humans&#8217; ankles, and Karen&#8217;s is to jump off a cliff so the family feels sorry for them. Stick Dog steers them away from both, very politely.<\/p>\n<p>If the plans are their favourite part, there are more in Stick Dog Crashes a Party. The same five dogs are back at Picasso Park, and this time it&#8217;s a wedding buffet they&#8217;re after.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Stick Dog by Tom Watson is a silly, chatty story for 7 year olds about five stray dogs who REALLY want a hamburger. First you have to make a deal with the narrator. He can&#8217;t draw (his art teacher scrunches up her face at his dogs) and you&#8217;re not allowed to give him any trouble [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":14266,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"lr_next_read_post_id":8727,"lr_next_read_anchor":"Stick Dog Crashes a Party","lr_seo_hook":"A narrator who can't draw, a dog in a pipe and a burger worth plotting for.","lr_series_id":370,"lr_series_name":"Stick Dog","lr_series_position":1,"lr_series_label":"","lr_author_order":""},"book_tag":[23],"age_group":[19],"book_type":[1044],"book_author":[988],"class_list":["post-14267","our-books","type-our-books","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","book_tag-funny-books","age_group-books-for-7-year-olds","book_type-paid","book_author-tom-watson"],"yoast_title":"Stick Dog by Tom Watson | Little Reads","yoast_metadesc":"A narrator who can't draw, a dog in a pipe and a burger worth plotting for. 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