School Library Journal Review
PreS-Gr 1-Kids will fall in love with Jesse, an energetic dog who loves making hats, cakes, and forts, but most of all he adores turning his room into a huge mess. Unfortunately, things get out of hand and Jesse gets lost in the clutter, along with Rabbit, Cat, and Hamster, who come to save him. Eventually, with Jesse's skill for digging, everyone is found and the room is put back in order, just in time for it to get messed up again. Toddlers and preschoolers will love the pup's attitude and parents distraught over their child's room could take the gentle reminder that everything messy can eventually be put back together. The vibrant watercolors illustrate the high-energy Jesse as well as the growing clutter. The simple text would make a great read-aloud when paired with Jane Yolen's How Do Dinosaurs Clean Their Rooms? (2005) or David Shannon's Too Many Toys (2008, both Scholastic). VERDICT As long as children are making messes, this book will be in high demand.-Brooke Newberry, La Crosse Public Library, WI (c) Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Horn Book Review
Jesse's messes become so unmanageable that the other household pets get lost. The floppy yellow pup realizes that the only way to save Cat, Rabbit, and Hamster is to slowly chip away at the clutter and put the house back in order. Slightly sloppy watercolor illustrations enhance the feeling of disorder and chaos at the heart of the simplistic story. (c) Copyright 2015. The Horn Book, Inc., a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Kirkus Review
A picture book about the joys of messy play. Jesse is a high-spirited dog who loves to make thingspaper hats, cakes and blanket fortsand the outcome of all this creative play is an astoundingly messy room. Eventually, even Jesse disappears into the clutter. The other pets in the householdRabbit, Cat and Hamstergo looking for him in the pile, but they too become lost to view. In time, everything gets sorted out, and the room is tidied up, which allows Jesse more opportunity to createand make another mess. This is the story's greatest appeal; it lets the little ones in on the joke of making a mess, cleaning it up and then realizing that now they have more room to make another mess. Bowles does a good job of matching text to illustrations and varying the illustrative format on the pages. However, many of the illustrations lack the underlying geometry to lead the eyes to a page turn, and this makes the flow of the story more static than it ought to be. The loosely rendered, brightly colored watercolors are cheerful, and the variably sized type is an effective visual prompt for read-aloud readers. A lighthearted story that toddlers will relate to. (Picture book. 2-6) Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
