Review: Maybe I Liked This One a Bit More Because My Mum Has a Border Collie That Looks Like Truffles
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 08 27, 2013
This is a fun book where some kids come across a talking dog in the park who possibly has escaped from a research facility where super intelligent dogs are being bred, (this part isn't outlined the reader is just left to assume) and even though it has the intelligence level to speak in English, hasn't been taught what standard dog behaviour is all about to pass itself off as a regular canine and blend in to escape the scientists and government agents who were no doubt funding it's creation from locating it.  Truffles as it tells the kids its name is every single time it opens it's mouth, gets rather confused with where it lives, opening with it's greeting that it lives in a tree, noises it makes, what it's species is called as a child, what it eats, what parts of its body are called and other things as a "regular dog" it should know. Or does it?  Are the children really just forgetting that if it a genetically engineered escaped prototype that it might actually have abilities like being able to climb trees?  Either way it's a pretty fun read.The illustrations are fairly good, Truffles does look like a border collie would if was in a cartoon world.  The only thing I thought was a bit lazy from the illustrator was that they reuse the same illustration of Truffles leaping after a tennis ball on every second page.  More illustrations would have been better than the same ones over and over again.  I also found the fact every second page started with My Name is Truffles when he's talking to the same three kids each time a bit unrealistic and annoying when reading out loud.  Unfortunately the book isn't formatted that well for Kindle readers, it only displays on the top half of the screen in portrait or the middle third of the screen in landscape.  This means you can't appreciate the pictures to their full extent.  I never understand why authors/illustrators take so much time to create decent pages but then get lazy with the formatting.  If the illustrations and text took up a full page this would be such a better book.Truffles is a fun character, I'd love to see him return in other books in the future.