Stick Dog Crashes a Party

I enjoyed this book, insofar as I think I would have loved it as a kid and I enjoyed having the emotional uplift on an otherwise drab day. I don't think it was quite as charming as the first Stick Dog book I read, but it was still fun and entertaining - if also a bit questionable in some aspects.

As an adult, I find it difficult not to instinctively poke holes in fantasy world logic, so sometimes I had to stop and remind myself that the reason the animals were so humanized and knew things they shouldn't was because the story of stick dog isn't meant to be real. The entire premise is that Stick Dog is a story being told by a young character for a writing assignment. With that in mind, all the illogical bits fall away and it's just plain fun. They're not even “real” animals in the context of the Stick Dog universe, therefore the fact some dogs appear to be able to read and others know what rockets etc. are isn't all that big of a deal. The child character knows what these things are and is too young to understand that his animal characters shouldn't; if he were a real child, I'd praise creativity instead of scrutinizing details.

Seeing Stick Cat make an appearance was cool, and I appreciated the small bit of exposition added for those like myself who haven't read all of the Stick Dog or Stick Cat books. (In fact, I haven't read a single Stick Cat book, so it would've been very confusing without a small bit of exposition to explain how he knew the dogs.) For a child reader, this would be useful since they can just grab any of the books from their school library without having to worry which ones are checked out and which ones they haven't yet read. It's something I enjoyed about Goosebumps and American Girl books in my own youth; you could read any volume and it'd still make sense out of order.

Overall, if I had a child, I'd introduce them to the Stick Dog and Stick Cat books in the hopes of encouraging them to love reading. I certainly think these books could do the trick, even for reluctant readers... so long as they like animals, of course.

My rating: Three stars for Goodreads, which by their system means “I like it.” Four stars for Amazon, since their rating system considers three stars to be negative and my intention isn't to rate this book negatively.